A New Approach to Demand Side Management Using Electric Springs

A microgrid is a collection of distributed generators, loads and energy storages, which recently expected to be spread and installed massively. It is connected to the local generating units and to the national grid to increase the security and reliability of the power system. Using microgrid involves several benefits. It is more environmentally friendly because it uses the renewable resources with low or zero emission generators. In addition, it prevents the failure of the utility grid during the peak load demand, increasing the overall energy efficiency of the power system being the users are close to the renewable sources, financial benefits whilst it generates some or all of energy requirements for its users. Also, it needs less technical skills because it is automated, it is isolated thus the microgrid isnt affected by any grid disturbances or outages. On the other hand, modern electric power systems with of new distributed renewable power sources such as wind power and solar power have seen significant penetration of intermittent renewable energy sources. The recently developed technology related to the concept smart grid in power systems also contributes to make the system more complex. The increasing use of renewable energy sources contribute further to the arising power quality problems like voltage and frequency that must be controlled to an acceptable standard and also, to maintain an energy balance between supply and demand. That is becoming more and more serious problem, and has been a great threat to the safety of electric power systems and the national economy as a whole. In addition, there are some difficulties related to microgrid protection, implementation, maintenance, available spaces for energy storage systems and resynchronization with the utility grid. A serious action must be considered to mitigate these shortcomings and improve the power quality being supplied to the customers and relief more transmission capacity. One of the emerging, innovative, and new technologies in smart grid area is the electric springs (ES). Since 1660s, when the British scientist Robert Hooke described the principle of the mechanical spring, there were no serious attempts during these three centuries to extend the principle of the mechanical spring to an electrical concept. Electric spring has great potential in stabilizing the future smart grid by regulating the mains voltage despite the fluctuation of the output power of the intermittent renewable energy sources. It can be integrated with home appliances allowing the load to follow the intermittent generation of renewable energy sources. This is unlike the previous idea that depends on generating enough energy to cover the load demand either completely or partially. One of the applications of using the electric spring in the smart grid is to decrease the required capacity of energy storage in the power system and its extension usage gives a new vision of the power system stability that will not depend in any way on communication technology. This project aims at implementing and applying a new approach based on electric springs for demand side management to build real time energy management strategy. This enhances the electric network with higher power quality, efficiency, and reliability. This electric spring will be implemented in laboratory scale prototype using advanced software, advanced digital signal processors, developed data acquisition cards, power electronic converters, and a simplified model for the network with its associated loads. The project entails four main phases. In the first phase, a comprehensive literature review on electric spring modeling, applications and controllers for real time energy management system will be conducted. In the second phase, electric spring based demand side management and the proposed control strategies will be developed to achieve higher supply quality and reliability. The third phase of the project will focus on building a laboratory prototype and implementing the developed control strategies on the laboratory prototype. Running necessary experimental work to validate the proposed demand side management and control strategies will be carried out in the fourth phase.