Sandia National Laboratories recently announced a collaborative study with New Mexico State University. The partnership aims to develop algorithms that can be coded into grid relays, enhancing the resilience of the grid. The joint project by Sandia enables microgrids to recover autonomously from damage, fostering connectivity among them to share power and maximize customer service.
According to a press release by Sandia National Laboratories, the team at Sandia developed algorithms that leverage voltage decreases for relay control. This innovation reduces costs and enhances reliability. In addition, they created algorithms enabling microgrid self-assembly to avoid damaged areas. They demonstrated success in a three-microgrid system model without relying on external communications. The results were presented in a paper at the 2022 North American Power Symposium.
"The ultimate goal is to enable systems to self-heal and form these ad hoc configurations when things go really bad," said Michael Ropp, an electrical engineer at Sandia and the project lead. "After the system is damaged or compromised, it can automatically figure out how to get to a new steady-state that provides power to as many customers as it possibly can; that’s what we mean by ‘self-healing.’ The key is that we’re doing it entirely with local measurements, so there is no need for expensive fiber optics or human controllers."
Ropp further stated, "We definitely want this to become something that people can really use, especially low-income communities that can’t afford fiber optic communications at every single point on every single electrical circuit. You can actually get very good performance and very good resilience using our library of algorithms. And if you do have the communications, this can be a backup."
Sandia National Laboratories focuses on national security issues, applying scientific expertise to detect, repel, defeat or mitigate threats. It operates under National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC., a subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., serving as a contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), according to the about webpage provided by Sandia National Laboratories.
