The major subject of this talk is the introduction and testing of a new operating paradigm necessary for sustainable performance of wide-area power systems. Given that (1) most of newly added renewable resources such as wind and solar are geographically dispersed, and (2) information processing (e.g. sensing, computing and communication) devices are becoming more affordable, a distributed decision-making framework becomes not only possible, but necessary for future electric energy systems.

The first part of this talk presents a distributed look-ahead dispatch framework which leverages (1) near-term forecasts of intermittent generation, (2) flexibility in price responsive demands, and (3) the distributed storage capabilities such as Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles to participate in energy balancing and frequency regulation services. The second part of this talk presents a fully distributed state estimation algorithm for wide area monitoring in power systems. Through iterative information exchange with designated neighboring control areas, all the balancing authorities (control areas) can achieve provably unbiased estimate of the entire power system’s states. Illustrative examples are shown in IEEE Reliability Test 24-bus System and 118-bus system. The proposed approach provides a theoretical framework for systematic integration of distributed energy resources with quantifiable performances.

 

Le Xie is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, where he is affiliated with the Electric Power and Power Electronic Group. He received his B.E. in Electrical Engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China in 2004. He received S.M. in Engineering Sciences from Harvard University in June 2005. He obtained his Ph.D. from Electric Energy Systems Group (EESG) in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in 2009. His industry experience includes an internship in 2006 at ISO-New England and an internship at Edison Mission Energy Marketing and Trading in 2007. His research interest includes modeling and control of large-scale complex systems, smart grid applications in support of variable energy integration, and electricity markets. Dr. Xie received National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and the Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Awards.  He is an Editor of IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, and an active member of IEEE Power and Energy Society Power System Analysis, Computing and Economics Committee. He also serves as the founding faculty advisor to Texas A&M Energy Club, a university-wide student-run organization focusing on energy.