PhD student Madi Zholbaryssov with advisor A. Domínguez-García We propose a distributed controller for voltage regulation in islanded ac microgrids with lossy lines and present stability analysis without assuming decoupled operation of the frequency and voltage controllers; the frequency controller achieves the active power load-sharing by driving the power flows to a certain manifold, and […]
Decentralized Control of Distributed Energy Resources in Lossy Power Networks
PhD student Hanchen Xu with advisors A. Domínguez-García and P. Sauer Frequency regulation is utilized in a power system to track the moment-to-moment load fluctuations in near real-time, and ensure generation and load are balanced in each control area. An alternative to the conventional regulation generators, the distributed energy resources (DERs) can also aggregately provide […]
Distributed Grid Control of Flexible Loads and DERs for Optimized Provision of Synthetic Regulating Reserves
PhD student Olaoluwapo Ajala with advisors A. Domínguez-García and P. W. Sauer The goal of the project is to enable the utilization of distributed energy resources (DERs) generation, storage resources, and flexible loads to provide frequency regulation services to the grid. We assume there is an entity, referred to as aggregator that operates (and possibly […]
Distributed Control Architecture for Microgrids
MS student Samuel Utomi with advisor A. Domínguez-García There has been a proliferation of distributed energy resources (DERs) due to their reduced cost and the desire to increase grid infrastructure reliability and stability. This has led to the viable integration of decentralized generation and the need to find innovative control strategies to obtain optimal performance. […]
Differential Power Processing for Voltage Regulation of Series-Stacked Processor Cores
PhD student Dipanjan Das with advisor P. Krein Power delivery to multi-core processors has become increasingly challenging as transistor sizes decrease and, consequently, their operating voltages. With rising core numbers for each processor, the power needs tend to remain the same for each new generation of microprocessors. Handling both transient performance requirements and efficiency has […]
Dynamic Model Parameter Estimation and Capacitance Prognostics for Single-Phase Induction Motors
PhD student Phuc Huynh with Advisor H. Zhu A hundred million single-phase induction motors (SPIMs) are connected to the U.S. distribution grid. Within a few hundred milliseconds after many simultaneously stall, a prolonged voltage drop on the distribution grid, called a fault-induced delayed voltage recovery (FIDVR), could occur. The event could lead to a cascading […]
Design of High Density Inverters for Photovoltaic and Motor Drive Applications
PhD student Christopher Barth with advisor R. Pilawa-Podgurski Inverter designs seek to minimize system volume and weight and improve efficiency and performance. As the energy density of capacitors has been shown to be around two orders of magnitude higher than inductors, one method of increasing power density is through the increased use of capacitors as […]
Solar Variability Reduction in Solar Arrays Using Off-MPP Tracking and Energy Storage Systems
PhD student Jason Galtieri with advisor P. T. Krein Maximum power point (MPP) tracking is the standard control scheme for photovoltaic (PV) arrays of all sizes. Inverter tracking algorithms work on second to sub-second time scales and can track most naturally occurring irradiance changes, such as moving cloud coverage. Fast response tracking imposes large power […]
A Five-Level Flying Capacitor Multi-Level Converter with Integrated Auxiliary Supply
PhD student Andrew Stillwell with advisor R. Pilawa-Podgurski Flying capacitor multi-level (FCML) converters are capacitor-baser power converters that provide high-density and high-efficiency power conversion for dc-dc and dc-ac applications. In many of these applications, there is a need for an auxiliary power supply for control, thermal management, or secondary loads. This auxiliary supply is traditionally […]
GaN-Based Flying-Capacitor Multilevel Boost Converter for High Step-Up Conversion
MS student Zitao Liao with advisor Pilawa-Podgurski Compact high step-up dc/dc conversion to provide high dc voltage has numerous applications. A conventional boost converter has many limitations with regard to achieving high voltage gain with high power density and efficiency. The flying capacitor multilevel (FCML) converter topology has inherent advantages to overcome many of the […]