Energy Speaker Series - Module 4: Power System Optimization - Virtual Power Plants and Microgrids

Session 4.1: Development of Virtual Power Plant Management System using Machine Learning Technology – Seungyup Baek, VGen

Recently, the interest in renewable energy is increased due to fossil fuel exhaustion and environment pollution. Also, South Korea Government took initiative in the investment on renewable energy by its Korea Renewable Energy 3020 Plan, setting a goal to produce 20% of its energy from renewable sources by 2030. When the plan that will dramatically grows the share of uncontrollable renewable energy resources in the power generation comes true, it will weaken security and controllability of power grid and could cause serious challenges for power grid operators. So VPP can be a solution that can solve that problem by integrating intermittent distributed energy resources (DER) through information and communication technologies to deliver single generation profile. There are two core technologies for VPP system, that we focus on: renewable energy forecasting technology and schedule optimization technology of electricity sales. In this presentation, works done by VGen Co., Ltd. on the development of VPP system using the various state-of-the-art technologies such as machine learning technologies, optimization technology and application compiler provided by MATLAB platform is introduced.

Session 4.2: Distributed Control Approaches in DC Microgrids – Mahdieh Sadabadi, University of Sheffield

Direct Current (DC) Microgrids are an appealing solution for increasing penetration of renewable energy sources with DC output-type, e.g. photovoltaics and fuel cells, as well as energy storage systems. Although DC microgrids hold significant promise, their widespread use has revealed major challenges from a control point of view, mainly associated with poor scalability and uncertainties in the energy supply and demands. Recent control developments in DC microgrid control systems are based on distributed control schemes, driven by advantages of the distributed control strategies compared to centralized control in terms of improved scalability, reliability, resiliency to a single point of failure, and reduced cost. The main objective of this talk is to develop a novel resilient distributed control approach with limited communication for achieving proportional load sharing and guaranteeing the rigorous robust stability of the microgrids with uncertain supply and demand. The proposed distributed controllers are designed in MATLAB and applied to a case study of a DC microgrid consisting of several distributed generation units in MATLAB/Simscape Electrical environment. 

About the Presenters

Seungyup Baek, CEO of VGen, South Korea

Seungyup Baek received the B.S. and the M.S. degrees in metallurgical engineering from Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea, in 1993 and 1995, respectively, and Pd.D. degree in industrial engineering form Penn State University, PA, USA, in 2007. He is currently a CEO of VGen that speicializes in VPP business. He has also experience in photovoltaic industry at STX Solar, where he leaded R&D department to develop next generation solar cell and module technologies. Currently, he has the responsibility of developing VPP system using artificial technology and optimization technology. His current research interests are in the field of renewable energy, solar, VPP, artificial technology, deep learning, optimization algorithm.

Dr. Mahdieh Sadabadi, Assistant Professor in the Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom

Dr. Mahdieh Sadabadi is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom. Prior to that, she was a Research Associate at the Department of Engineering, the University of Cambridge and affiliated with Trinity College in Cambridge. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Division of Automatic Control at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Linkoping University in Sweden. She received her Ph.D. in Control Systems from Automatic Control Laboratory, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland in February 2016.