Thomas I. Strasser

AIT Austrian Institute of Technology | ait · Center for Energy

Smart energy solutions aim to modify and optimise the operation of existing energy infrastructure. Such cyber-physical technology must be mature before deployment to the actual infrastructure, and competitive solutions will have to be compliant to standards still under development. Achieving this technology readiness and harmonisation requires repr...

This book is an open access book. This book provides an overview of the ERIGrid validation methodology for validating CPES, a holistic power system testing method. It introduces readers to corresponding simulation and laboratory-based tools, including co-simulation, real-time simulation, and hardware-in-the-loop. Selected test cases and validation...

One can define an energy system as a system that converts one or more energy fluxes into other energy fluxes of a different kind. This definition may describe a relatively small system, for instance, a power plant, a chemical plant, or the heating and cooling apparatus of a single-family house, as well as one covering larger energy needs, for examp...

Multi-microgrids address the need for a resilient, sustainable, and cost-effective electricity supply by providing a coordinated operation of individual networks. Due to local generation, dynamic network topologies, and islanding capabilities of hosted microgrids or groups thereof, various new fault mitigation and optimization options emerge. Howev...

The electrical energy system is undergoing major changes due to the necessity for more sustainable energy generation and the following increased integration of novel grid-connected devices, such as inverters or electric vehicle supply equipment. To operate reliably in novel circumstances, as created by the decentralization of generation, power syst...

The integration of renewable local energy generation in single households-turning the household into a ''prosumer''-is an important way to support an ecological transition of the electric power system. However, due to the volatile and distributed nature of most renewable energy sources, the power system may face stability problems when integrating...

The dependability of the power infrastructure is ensured by established testing practices. However, these practices do not address new stability phenomena or issues arising from cyber-physical interactions through increasingly digitalized control technologies. With the above-described challenges and developments, the complexity of test planning and...

The SIRFN Microgrid Task has a particular focus on laboratory testing and validation of components and systems related to microgrids. The task brings together a network of test laboratories and researchers to share best practices and devise common methods of testing. The high level overview of the task activities is shown in the poster, where it ca...

The 8th International Summer School on Industrial Agents: Autonomous Control in Logistics, Production and Energy Applications will be organized by the Helmut Schmidt University / University of the Federal Armed Forces, Institute for Automation Technology in Hamburg. The summer school will take place from 11th to 15th July 2022. It brings together l...

Microgrids and multi-microgrids are commonly installed to fulfill rising flexibility needs and to boost the system resilience by advanced fault mitigation capabilities. On top of a complex control architecture, proactive resilient scheduling optimizes the operation of such grids in advance. Although several scheduling algorithms include measures to...

The uninterruptible operation of grid-connected renewables under the occurrence of grid voltage sags is addressed in this work. This is achieved due to the incorporation of an enhanced control algorithm of a renewable source. The low-voltage ride-through algorithm was developed in accordance to the voltage profile introduced by IEC 61400-21 regardi...

To achieve net-zero emissions economy, the transition to online entertainment and retail, aging populations, urban population growth, and pressures on public finance have created huge interests for human to run cities differently and smartly. A term titled smart city is created which is considered as an idealistic city, where the quality of life fo...

Microgrids are one important lever to increase power system resilience and to tightly integrate renewable energies at the same time. Commonly, an optimization-based proactive scheduling controls assets in advance in a cost-effective way and ensures that contingencies may be successfully mitigated. However, often strong simplifications are introduce...

The electrical energy system is undergoing major changes due to the necessity for more sustainable energy generation and the following increased integration of novel grid connected devices, such as inverters. To operate reliably in novel circumstances, as created by the decentralization of generation, power systems usually need grid supportive func...

Agent-technologies have been used for higher-level decision making in addition to carrying out lower-level automation and control functions in industrial systems. Recent research has identified a number of architectural patterns for the use of agents in industrial automation systems but these practices vary in several ways, including how closely ag...

The integration of industrial automation systems and software agents has been practiced for many years. However, such an integration is usually done by experts and there is no consistent way to assess these practices and to optimally select one for a specific system. Standards such as the ISO/IEC 25023 propose measures that could be used to obtain...

While the past fifty years have been dominated by the so-called communication revolution, today we are at the dawn of the energy revolution. The entire economy is energy driven, being electricity its most important energy vector and the smart grid concept has been used in order to achieve a smarter electrical distribution infrastructure. Smart mete...

A significant issue for fault classification in power distribution systems is limited fault data for training classifiers to identify power failure types for remediation. Measurement data from power systems are mostly unlabeled without specified fault types, and labeled data with confirmed fault types are very limited, posing challenges to training...

The main purpose of this Special Issue of IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, And Cybernetics: Systems is to discuss recent advances for intelligence in power and energy systems. The IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC) Society has a lot of activities that provide potential solutions for more intelligence in power and energy systems. This articl...

Additive Manufacturing (AM) evolved recently from a rapid prototyping process to a standard manufacturing tool. Nevertheless, it is still not a widely used method due to different process-related challenges. In recent years printer technologies and possible printable materials emerged but there are still challenging demands on the printing process....

Electric power systems are currently confronted with a fundamental paradigm change related to its planning and operation, mainly caused by the massive integration of renewables. To allow higher penetration of them within existing grid infrastructures, the “smart grid” makes more efficient use of existing resources by integrating appropriate informa...

Promoting Innovative Research Activities in the Energy Field

Power system operation is of vital importance and must be developed far beyond today's practice to meet future needs. Almost all European countries are facing an abrupt and very important increase of renewables with intrinsically varying yields which are difficult to predict. In addition, an increase of new types of electric loads and a reduction o...

The rollout of smart grid solutions has already started and new methods are deployed to the power system today. But the complexity is still increasing and the focus is moving from a single system to a system of systems perspective. The results are increasing engineering efforts and escalating costs. To address these challenges, this work proposes t...

The low-voltage ride-through service is carried out in this paper according to the voltage profile described by the IEC 61400-21 European normative when short-duration voltage sags happen, and some instantaneous reactive power is delivered to the grid in accordance with the Spanish grid code; the mandatory limitation of the amplitude of the three-p...

This chapters briefly summarizes the main achievements and contributions of the ERIGrid project related to validation and testing methods and concepts for Cyber-Physical Energy System (CPES) systems. Also, an outlook about necessary future research and development work by addressing smart energy systems needs are outlined.

The importance of education and training in the domain of power and energy systems targeting the topics of cyber-physical energy systems/smart grids is discussed in this chapter. State-of-the art laboratory-based and simulation-based tools are presented, aiming to address the new educational needs.

In order to systematically plan, specify, and execute system-level test for smart grids in a cyber-physical and multi-domain manner, the ERIGrid holistic testing approach is introduced. Also, the corresponding test description and templates are discussed.

The importance of using real-time simulation and hardware-in-the-loop techniques for the domain of power and energy systems is covered by this chapter. A brief overview of the main concepts is provided as well as a method for their integration into a holistic validation framework for testing smart grid systems. Also, corresponding reference impleme...

Cyber-physical energy systems or smart grids tend to higher complexity due to the integration of renewables as well as the usage of advanced information and communication technology which is briefly outlined within this chapter. Moreover, the needs for system-level validation approaches, methods, and corresponding tools are discussed. Those needs a...

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue Methods and Concepts for Designing and Validating Smart Grid Systems that was published in Energies.

This special issue focuses on the current and novel issue known as Industry 4.0 (Fourth Industrial Revolution). It contains very interesting and original works that deal with smart manufacturing. They are listed below: Pranab K. Muhuri, Amit K. Shukla, Ajith Abraham, Industry 4.0: A bibliometric analysis and detailed overview, Engineering Applicat...

The quality of power and current control are the greatest challenges of grid-connected wind farms during abnormal conditions. The negative-and positive-sequence components of the grid currents may be injected into a wind generation system during grid faults, which can affect the power stability and damage the wind system. The proposed work assures...

Abstract The massive deployment of distributed generators from renewable sources in recent years has led to a fundamental paradigm change in terms of planning and operation of the electric power system. The usage of advanced automation and information and communication technology is a key element to handle these new challenges and to turn the tradi...

This paper proposes a Multi-task Logistic Low-Ranked Dirty Model (MT-LLRDM) for fault detection in power distribution networks by using the distribution Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) data. The MT-LLRDM improves the fault detection accuracy by utilizing the similarities in the fault data streams among multiple locations across a power distribution n...

A driving force for the realization of a sustainable energy supply is the integration of renewable energy resources. Due to their stochastic generation behaviour, energy utilities are confronted with a more complex operation of the underlying power grids. Additionally, due to technology developments, controllable loads, integration with other energ...

This article deals with the vector control in dq axes of a three-phase grid-connected photovoltaic system with single-stage topology and low-voltage-ride-through capability. The photovoltaic generator is built using an array of several series-parallel Suntech PV modules and is modeled as a Lookup Table (two-dimensional; 2-D). The requirements adopt...

Advances in the domain of electronics and information and communication technology provide a tremendous set of new possibilities and services. The development of the Internet of Things concept where different sensors, actuators, and control devices are connected together and where functions are provided to the Internet, is on the way to be used als...

The secure operation of future power systems will rely on better coordination between transmission system and distribution system operators. Increasing integration of renewables throughout the whole system is challenging the traditional operation. To tackle this problem, the SmartNet project proposes and evaluates five different coordination scheme...

The dependability on real-time control is significantly increasing due to the transition from synchronous grids to converter connected micro grids. Distributed control schemes can significantly decrease the degree of single-points-of-failure of Smart Grid control schemes, thereby introducing new complexity of power system communications. We propose...

This Editorial provides an introduction to the Special Issue “Methods and Concepts for Designing and Validating Smart Grid Systems”. Furthermore, it also provides an overview of the corresponding papers that where recently published in MDPI’s Energies journal. The Special Issue took place in 2018 and accepted a total of 19 papers from 19 different...

The continuously increasing complexity of modern and sustainable power and energy systems leads to a wide range of solutions developed by industry and academia. To manage such complex system-of-systems, proper engineering and validation approaches, methods, concepts, and corresponding tools are necessary. The Smart Grid Architecture Model (SGAM), a...

Industrial areas like manufacturing, logistics and power systems require highly flexible and adaptable control solutions in order to fulfill future requirements. An industrial automation system has to provide technologies, concepts and mechanisms allowing the adaption of control logic during operation. Proper engineering approaches as well as execu...

An important activity within ELECTRA IRP was to evaluate the proposed Web-of-Cells (WoC) realtime control approach and its corresponding control schemes which are described in corresponding deliverables D4.2 (functional architecture) [1], D5.3 (control architecture) [2], and D6.3 (control schemes) [3]. The objective of this activity was to conduct...

Real-time simulation methods for investigations on electric networks and integration of grid connected generation units are increasingly in the focus of ongoing research areas. While laboratory testing methods are the predominant method for the verification of safety and quality related features of grid-connected generation units in the past, load...

The fundamental changes in the energy sector, due to the rise of renewable energy resources and the possibilities of the digitalisation process, result in the demand for new methodologies for testing Smart Grid concepts and control strategies. Using the Power Hardware-in-the-Loop (PHIL) methodology is one of the key elements for such evaluations. P...

A driving force for the realization of a sustainable energy supply in Europe is the integration of distributed, renewable energy resources. Due to their dynamic and stochastic generation behaviour, utilities and network operators are confronted with a more complex operation of the underlying distribution grids. Additionally, due to the higher flexi...

A significant integration of energy storage systems is taking place to offer flexibility to electrical networks and to mitigate side effects of a high penetration of distributed energy resources. To accommodate this, new processes are needed for the design, implementation, and proof-of-concept of emerging storage systems services, such as voltage a...

Tutorial about methods and tools for validating cyber-physical energy systems which was give at the 44th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IECON), Washington DC, USA, 2018.

Tutorial about the ERIGrid concepts, methods and tools for validating cyber-physical energy systems which was give at the 2018 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC), Miyazaki, Japan.

The papers in this special section examine energy management in future smart cities. Cities and urban regions are becoming smarter thanks to the recent developments of digital technologies, smart control, data analytics, and optimization concepts. A smart city is equipped with different electronic elements employed by several applications. The util...

New testing and development procedures and methods are needed to address topics like power system stability, operation and control in the context of grid integration of rapidly developing smart grid technologies. In this context, individual testing of units and components has to be reconsidered and appropriate testing procedures and methods need to...

The rollout of smart grid architectures and solutions has already started. New and intelligent methods are deployed to the distribution grids today. However, complexity is still increasing as focus is moving from a single system to a system of systems perspective. As a result, increasing engineering efforts and complexity lead to escalating costs....