About Us

Welcome Message

Welcome to the homepage of the research project “Sustainable power delivery structures for high renewables” funded by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council under the Theme-based Research Scheme (Fourth round, 2014). This 5-year project, which started in January 2015 and will finish December 2019.

The project addresses the whole of system question of how future electrical grids can deliver reliable energy and power, which has been generated by renewable sources from households to large-scale wind and solar farms. These structures will combine the legacy grid (or parts at least) along with new structures such as networked microgrids, nanogrids all operated by what some call smart grids (where ‘smart’ usually remains very vaguely evaluated). We prefer to be more precise about what these structures can achieve and how they can be optimized where possible. We believe that our research complements the world-wide activities in novel generation and storage technologies by studying how all these can be used reliably at high levels in different wider network configurations.

The research team combines experts in the fields of power networks, power electronics, communications networks and automatic control from three Hong Kong and two overseas universities. We aim to make fundamental advances in the area of

I invite you to explore our projects and activities in more detail by reading the information at the homepage.

David Hill-2

Professor David John HILL
Project Coordinator
Chair of Electrical Engineering

Background

This proposal addresses the sustainability of electrical power delivery systems. Many countries and electricity company groups are already committed to increase renewable electrical energy generation to 20% by 2020, and some have much higher figures. It is now clear that energy sustainability refers to the complete network (or grid) which delivers the power as much as the sources of energy. This package of energy supply and grid can make a major contribution to solving the urgent and potentially devastating problems of pollution and climate change [1]. Further, there will be no universal solution, so Hong Kong with ambitious goals for emissions reductions, islands, tall buildings and a strong interconnection to China, where massive developments in renewable power are occurring, will need its own investigations. This is particularly important at this time when future energy security options must be considered within the emissions targets. Much higher use of renewable power, including offshore wind-power (and demand management), is under serious consideration already. The proper operation of an electricity grid involves an intricate set of balancing processes for energy, power, ramping all while achieving the regulation of system variables, e.g. voltages, frequency, line powers, and keeping the system protected and secure following disturbances. This is achieved with layers of system control (and market) processes. These processes all need to be redesigned for high levels of renewable power due to the weather driven variability of the power supply. Some studies have been made by governments worldwide to answer the question: what percentage levels of renewable energy are achievable? The question should also include asking what are the corresponding network structures that can be cost effective and robust to all the changes over coming decades? It is possible that this is all limited by stability problems caused by the variable generation. Our research is aimed to determine the structure of the delivery systems, which can overcome any such limitations and be sustainable in the long-term, including the appropriate system wide information and control systems.

The basic requirement is instantaneous balance of power generation and load demand in order to maintain a stable frequency. The traditional paradigm of generation following demand, where millions of diverse customer actions are balanced with the controlled output of a small number of major generation plants, cannot handle the distributed and variable nature of solar and wind energy sources. We will study a new paradigm, which is adaptive in the sense of demand following generation. The load devices contribute to overall balancing and welfare of the system in processes of demand response and load control. Thus future smart loads, using advanced power electronics, and the control and communication systems must themselves be adaptive to the dynamically changing power generation and circumstances.

The four research teams will be led by internationally renowned experts in the key areas: power systems, power electronics, computer networking and control technology. The investigators will add special skills for particular projects. By integrating these areas in a balanced way, the aim is to build a unique research capability which can support the future industry in the Pearl River Region and beyond. The team will build on several of its own highly innovative ideas that have shown promise for the proposed research, namely (i) electric springs, (ii) granular modelling and control and (iii) adaptive networking (integrated with communication, control and security). It will collaborate with other researchers towards establishing Hong Kong as a central contributor in the vital area of sustainable electricity supply with benefits for the broader China area.

Mission and Objectives

Mission

To derive a sustainable structure for the operation, control and protection of future electricity networks delivering harvested renewable energy to consumers who themselves play a demand-side role in the overall system.

By maximizing the synergy between the key areas of power systems (PS), power electronics (PE), information and communication (IC) and decision and control (DC) technologies an overall aim is to achieve minimal cost while ensuring stability and reliability standards.

Goals

Develop an integrated approach based on all four key technical areas, including a novel ‘demand response’ balancing paradigm that implements the demand following generation (DFG) paradigm for real-time balancing of power generation and demand*;
Develop PE based electric springs into universal type smart load controllers, which locally achieve contributions to basic balancing (including a storage facility) and stability (frequency and voltage);
Integrate DC and IC strategies to study distributed control algorithms that can achieve the higher functions of the sustainable smart grid including self-healing, reduced peak demand and improved security with optimised wide-area communication and sensor networks;
Integrate the outcomes of the above steps to incorporate further requirements on improving the energy efficiency and reliability of power system operation, including the needs for Hong Kong delivery to high buildings, islands and an interconnection to a large changing grid*;
Further enabling increased consumer participation in power system operation with various financial considerations, i.e. price-based mechanisms, reduced power prices, alongside the control-based mechanisms;
Establish a regional research and educational hub in energy harvesting and sustainable grid technology for university, industry and governments.

Deliverables

An architecture for sustainable electrical networks allowing maximal renewable power input;
Novel integrated solutions (PS, PE, IC and DC) to solving power system balancing, stabilisation and control problems arising from substantial penetration of intermittent renewable energy sources in power grid;
New PE, communication and control devices and strategies to implement the processes for sustainable electrical networks;
These include a new generation of domestic smart load controls that are adaptive to variable generation and provide load-based control for network requirements;
World-class research and teaching facilities for sustainable grid design/hardware/simulation studies;
Research and industrial seminars and courses for industry and governments in Hong Kong and the Asia Pacific
Top-tier journal publications and patents.