Highly distributed power systems, so-called microgrids, play an indispensable role in addressing the societal energy need without impairing the environmental sustainability by incorporating various renewable energy sources and enabling local integration of energy generation, distribution, and storage. Information about the frequency deviation and phase angle changes, which are critical for stable and reliable microgrid operations, should be efficiently monitored to ensure secure power management and real-time disturbance response. Traditional solutions to Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs), however, are considered unsatisfactory for microgrid monitoring due to their high installation cost and low accessibility.
This
research aims to bridge the gap between these traditional systems and the unique requirements of microgrid monitoring by fully unleashing the unexploited capabilities of modern embedded and mobile platforms, including the various sensorboards and smartphones. First, we developed a smartphone-based frequency monitoring system which provides a measurement accuracy of 0.1 mHz at the cost of less than $100. Second, we harvest the time signal from the widely available cellular radio for time synchronization, so as to ensure accurate phase angle measurement without relying on continuous GPS reception. Third, various power quality monitoring functionalities are integrated to cover system disturbances over a wide range of frequency spectrum.
Selected publications:
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A Microgrid Monitoring System over Mobile Platforms [pdf]
Haoyang Lu, Lingwei Zhan, Yilu Liu and Wei Gao, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol. 8(2), 2017, pp. 749-758. -
Synchronized Wireless Measurement of High Voltage Power System Frequency using Mobile Embedded Systems
Wenxuan Yao, Haoyang Lu, Micah Till, Wei Gao and Yilu Liu, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 2017. -
Recent Development of FNET/GridEye - A Situational Awareness Tool for Smart Grid [pdf]
Yong Liu, Wenxuan Yao, Dao Zhou, Ling Wu, Shutang You, Hesen Liu, Lingwei Zhan, Jiecheng Zhao, Haoyang Lu, Wei Gao and Yilu Liu, CSEE Journal of Power and Energy Systems, vol. 2(3), 2016, pp. 19-27. - Accurate Power Quality Monitoring in Microgrids [pdf]
Zhichuan Huang, Ting Zhu, Haoyang Lu and Wei Gao, in Proceedings of the 15th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN), 2016.
(Acceptance Ratio: 23/117=19.6%) -
A GPS-Free Power Grid Monitoring System over Mobile Platforms [pdf]
Haoyang Lu, Lingwei Zhan, Yilu Liu and Wei Gao, in Proceedings of the IEEE PES General Meeting, 2015. - Power Grid Frequency Monitoring Over Mobile Platforms [pdf]
Haoyang Lu, Lingwei Zhan, Yilu Liu, and Wei Gao, in Proceedings of the 5th IEEE Int'l Conference on Smart Grid Communications (SmartGridComm), 2014.
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