Projects

Preliminary results and graphs of the following projects can be found via:

https://sites.google.com/site/jkwangdgrid/pub

Current Projects (click the projects for details)
- [Upcoming] Testbed for power grid's cyber-security [sponsorship from the American Electric Power]
- [New] Motivation-based cyber attacks to power grids/ Data-driven cyber security and defense mechanism [preliminary results recognized by the 2016 ORAU Junior Faculty Award, sponsored by NSF: core program EPCN]
- [New] Distribution level support module development for the System Integrity Protection System (SIPS)
- [New] Algorithmic tools for equipment protection performance enhancement in active distribution systems
- Energy distribution optimization in mission critical compact electric structures [sponsored and in collaboration with AFRL]
- EV's impact on power distribution grids [sponsored by the Ford Motor Company, 2015-2017]
Master and Undergraduate Research
- [New] Impact of ultra fast charging of Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEV) on power transmission grids.

The future trend of PEV charging is anticipated at a rate compelling to gas fueling of convention vehicles, which indicates power rate of up to 1MW per fleet. Not only this rate will enable increasing adoption of PEV over wider areas and interstate PEV driving, but also it will put an unprecedented burden on the existing power grid. This project develops analytical tools for siting ultra-fast charging stations and software modules to simulate the power grid's limit of PEV penetration. The deliverables will predict the scenarios of disruptive charging and driving patterns that could induce cascading blackouts. [This project is sponsored by the Ford Motor Company]

[New] Resilient design of electricity markets against cyber attacks

Cyber attacks at electricity markets will result in financial losses, inefficient market operation, and could deteriorate the reliability of the physical power grid. This study investigates the operator and attacker interactions under various settings of electricity markets with a game theoretic approach. In particular, the delay induced by communication, physical device ramping limits and players' response latency are considered.

[UG: Complete Spring, 2017] Fast charging scheme for future Electric Vehicles (EV)

This project develops hardware and software that enables short-distance wireless (e.g., blue tooth and wifi) controlled EV charging for residential end users. [student report available]

[UG: Completed Fall, 2016] Autonomous operation of microgrid supported by on site storage.
This projects examines various storage technologies in support to islanding operation of a microgrid. The optimal locations and capacities of storage, under the objective of maximizing end-user reliability and minimizing capital investment, is formulated and simulated. [student report available]
[UG: Complete Fall, 2015] Increasing penetration of Electric Vehicles (EV) by integrating renewable energy in distribution grids

Presented as impulsive loads, EV have raised the concern of deteriorating end-user power quality, in particular, voltage deviation and harmonics pollution. This study looks into the solution of using distribution generation of Renewable Energy (RE) to balance EV's negative impact. A major technical challenge is RE siting are not always feasible in the proximity of wide spread charging locations. This study derives analytic formalism that allocates RE by seeking the voltage center of a distribution grid, which is in analogous to weighted chebyshev center geometrically. [student report and publication available]

Motivation-Based Cyber Attacks to Power Grid from the Monitoring Level

Attacks on the Monitoring Layer (ML attacks) inject falsified measurements to manipulate decision-making processes to accomplish the attacking goal. This class of attacks is distinct from those injecting data for covert malicious control actions, and those to disable alarms from failures of physical components in the power grid. The latter attacks are only accessorized by erroneous measurement injection; nevertheless, their attacking targets are system controllers and the physical power grid.

Existing research on ML attacking models have intrinsic deficiencies: an attacker’s goal is modelled by erroneous measurements but not by final consequences (an attacker’s motivation) on the grid. Defense methods derived from the existing methodologies are implied ineffective in prevention of threats to power grids.

The proposed research aims at investigating cyber-attacks on the Monitoring layer of the power grid Based on attacker’s Motivation (MBM attacks) and their defense mechanisms. The preliminary findings and future research tasks together will reveal the cyber-physical correlation and physical causal chains of MBM attacks on power grids.

Recognition: The preliminary results of this work is recognized by the 2016 Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Awards at Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU).

This research is funded by National Science Foundation (NSF), award number: 1711048.

This research is in collaboration with the Washington State University.

D2T System Resilience Enhancement against Large-Disturbance Voltage Instability

Active Distribution Networks (DN) bring opportunities and challenges to system protection against voltage instability. The existing System Integrity Protection Systems (SIPS) tools, including assessment methods and remedial strategies, are concentrated on the transmission level. DN are approximated by aggregated models. This design will not only fail to harvest the benefits from DG, but it will also fail to identify the instability sources within DN, and could take corrective actions triggering undesired response from protective devices, which makes the future power grid extremely fragile. An effective design of system protection must consider the interaction between DN and Transmission Networks (TN), and be able to make corrective actions in a short time.

Our work seeks for thorough understanding of fundamental principles of the interaction between transmission and active distribution networks under large-disturbance voltage instability. Based on the principles, assessment tools and remedy strategies will be developed in an integrated manner to arrest the whole power system, at both transmission and distribution level, from severe consequences of voltage collapse. The preliminary results of our work reveal the hierarchical structure of a power system's response undergoing voltage instability with active DN.

Equipment Protection for Automated Feeder Systems

Legacy protection system at distribution level assumes power flowing in single direction from the substation. Increasing penetration of Distributed Generation (DG) invalidates this assumption and will disrupt protection coordination. Deficiencies of existing solutions can be attributed to their high cost, inflexibility of implementation, and limited effectiveness under high penetration of renewable DG. Our research develops algorithmic tools for reliable and secure equipment protection in active distribution networks (i) during the fault interruption, (ii) during system restoration, which is well known as the cold load pick up issue, and (iii) when the distribution network is reconfigured for performance enhancement purpose.

Electric Vehicle's Impact on Power Distribution Grids

Electric Vehicle (EV) sales continue to increase, making a preexisting need for updating current infrastructure even more important. Public charging, in particular, fast DC charging technologies can cause stress to the grid, including voltage deviations and increased loading, leading municipal utilities to hesitate on approval. Our work aims to develop analytical methods and algorithmic tools for quantifying EV's impact on distribution networks and proposing solutions from smart grid planning and operation.

Distinguished from voluminous studies on EV-grid integration, our research approach emphasizes the electric characteristics of distribution grids, the physical limits and opportunities provided by the emerging distribution automation technologies.

Recognition: This work is sponsored by the Ford Motor Company.

Energy Optimization for Compact Electric Structures

We develop algorithms and portable tools to optimize energy in compact electric structures. This work has been sponsored by and in collaboration with the Air Force Research laboratory (AFRL) and OFRN since 2016.

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