Project Description

Project TED2021-129927B-I00 funded by MCIN/ AEI /10.13039/501100011033 and by the "European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR"

Currently, many European countries have power units nearing their technical end-of-life and/or shutting down according to the decarbonization of the EU power sector following the ecological transition agenda. There is a consensus that a decentralized system with more on-site power generation systems and microgrids capable of operating in island mode may be resilient against the impacts of an occurring hazard. Therefore, simultaneous development of distributed generation devices used in the innovative Distributed Power Generation (DPG) compatible with Hybrid Energy Storage (HES) with monitoring and diagnostic capabilities can directly reduce the risk of blackout. DPG systems can work in cogeneration or as electrical energy production systems, including renewable energy sources (see Directive 2012/27/EU). Given the unpredictable characteristics of renewable energy-based generation to ensure the supply and stability of the distribution network, it is necessary to have energy storage systems. These must allow the generation of renewable energy in periods of unavailability. The introduction of new energy storage systems in the supply networks is being considered strategic for both the European Union and the Spanish government. There are currently two new elements that are gaining momentum and a great effort is being made to put them on the market, these are: hydrogen storage systems and redox flow batteries. These two types of systems will play a very important role in the near future and in the proposed project.

A visible trend has been observed to control distributed power generation installations remotely, using sensors and actuators connected with the control system via a communication network. Therefore, this project deals with the development of efficient management strategies for DPG systems using a hierarchical multi-layer scheme in an evolved context (i.e. including renewable energies, HES and CHP) including digitalisation technologies coming from Communication, Control and Computing (CCC) areas. Furthermore, emphasis will be placed on the monitoring and control based on the computing cloud (Control as a Service - CaaS) that allow making use of advanced artificial intelligence algorithms. Such a solution provides benefits in terms of cost, flexibility, ease of modifications and maintenance.
Finally, the use of these new digitalisation technologies also possesses specific problems that need to be addressed, such as resilience of control actions, information flow and cybersecurity, that also will be targeted in this project in the context of DPG systems.

The contributions of this project with respect existing approaches in the literature will be:
* the development of an hierarchical integrated mutil-layer control of a DPG considering the interactions between the three levels: component, microgrid and grid.
* the inclusion of HES in the DPG that allows a more efficient management allowing to cope with energy price and demand variation during the day.
* the inclusion of multicarrier energy systems (as e.g. CHP) considering coordination in operation and planning across multiple energy vectors to deliver reliable, cost-effective energy services to end users/customers with minimal impact on the environment.
* the inclusion of abnormal events (faults/cyber attacks) detection and the corresponding mitigation actions that are able to guarantee a safe, secure and resilient energy supply to the consumers.