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Center for Electrical Power Systems and Renewable Energy

The implementation of the agreed political goals to transform our energy supply towards a climate-neutral system by the middle of this century requires a modern, resilient, participatory and sustainable power system - an inherently stable and efficient infrastructure, emission-free energy conversion, low-loss and standard-compliant power transmission and distribution, and enables progressive electrification towards an All Electric Society.

As part of the extensive electrification of many areas of life, a paradigm shift in energy supply will have to take place, as part of which previously axiomatic strategies and methods in the energy industry, grid planning and dimensioning, grid management, grid protection, communication applications and digitalization will be questioned and improved.

The power system of the future will experience trends from political requirements, social commitment and economic interests and will be shaped by a wide variety of aspects (only a selection of the possible conditions):

  • a simultaneously decentralized and cellular power system at the distribution level and a centralized power system with a superimposed transport grid and extensive market at the transmission level,
  • Communication technologies are an essential part of the energy supply and are highly interdependent with the physical provision of power,
  • the end consumers become active, participatory grid customers through opportunities in variable demand, through the use of energy storage and distributed generation,
  • Sector coupling significantly contributes to the performance in terms of energy storage and transmission (multimodal system with interdependencies: hydrogen, gas, heat, cold),
  • AI methods influence power system behavior and make a significant contribution to a resilient system.

The focus of expertise at the IEHT contributes to the implementation of a sustainable power system transformation in the age of the All Electric Society through various activities and focuses on the line-based electricity supply in the transmission and distribution levels as well as on the interactive, dynamic interaction of all grid participants, taking into account the above-mentioned developments.

Competence Areas

Monitoring and Diagnostics of High-Voltage Devices

The cost-optimized generation and distribution of electrical energy is crucial for energy supply companies. One of the ways to achieve this goal is to improve the utilization of existing resources in terms of their loading and overall operating time and to reduce maintenance costs while maintaining a high level of security of supply. Modern monitoring and diagnostic techniques for electrical energy technology equipment can make a significant contribution to this.

The failure of high-voltage devices, e.g. bushings, cables and transformers, causes immense costs. As links between power plants and the electrical grid or power systems with different voltage levels, large transformers ensure the economical distribution of electrical energy. Their constant availability is therefore the basis for a reliable electrical energy supply.

A reduction in maintenance costs for electrical energy technology equipment could be achieved through a new maintenance and repair strategy. The use of modern monitoring and diagnostic techniques could lead to maintenance measures being carried out less prophylactically in the future and instead primarily based on technical necessity.

All physical and chemical effects that either cause a degradation of the device condition or that arise as a result of the degradation can be used to develop diagnostic techniques. Diagnostic techniques exist to detect thermally caused defects or to detect insulation damage, some of which have been in use on site or in the test field for years. Examples of this are gas-in-oil analysis or partial discharge measurement technology.

The goals for future diagnostics can be derived from the considerations so far:

  • Social goals:
    • Reduction of risks to the environment through early detection of developing errors,
    • technical information through conscious action
    • Increasing safety for operating personnel,
    • reduced stress for staff.
  • Economic goals:
    • Adaptive maintenance should lead to a reduction in operating costs,
    • Reduction of effort for maintenance personnel,
    • Business interruptions (for maintenance) can be planned better, with the aim of lower downtime costs, as well
    • Planning replacement investments based on the condition of the equipment (remaining lifespan can be estimated)
  • Technical goals:
    • Optimization of resources and a system through better knowledge of the loads in operation,
    • Detection of sporadic malfunctions through continuous diagnostics, quantitative information about the development and behavior of certain measured variables, e.g. partial discharge, as well
    • Correlations of the measured variables with maintenance intervals and remaining service life.

Contact

Prof. Dr. Markus Zink

Phone
+49 9721 940-8498
E-Mail
markus.zink[at]thws.de
Visiting Address
Ignaz-Schön-Straße 11
97421 Schweinfurt
Room
2.2.05
Office Hours

Office hour upon agreement.

Please contact me by mail.

Profile picture Prof. Dr. Markus Zink

Design of Network Components

An electrical grid component, such as a generator, transformer, coil, cable, can only be put into operation in the power system if it is correctly designed and functions correctly under all possible conditions in the system. Functional requirements for grid components must be identified in the first step, which can then be included in a specification. This starts with the correct identification of nominal sizes, especially nominal voltage and nominal power. All possible loads, such as asymmetrical loads, star point loads and harmonics, should then be precisely determined. Additional system requirements, particularly insulation coordination and short-circuit strength, play a large role in the design of each component.

Digitalization and climate change are creating new challenges in connection with the design of components. An example of this are the so-called environmental requirements, in particular temperature rise limits and cooling requirements.

Contact

Prof. Dr. Markus Zink

Phone
+49 9721 940-8498
E-Mail
markus.zink[at]thws.de
Visiting Address
Ignaz-Schön-Straße 11
97421 Schweinfurt
Room
2.2.05
Office Hours

Office hour upon agreement.

Please contact me by mail.

Profile picture Prof. Dr. Markus Zink

Analysis of Electrical Power Systems

Power system analyses are an essential part of the design of electrical grids. Calculations and simulations are performed to ensure that the electrical system, including system components, are correctly specified to perform as intended, withstand expected loads and be protected from failure.

International standards and local regulations are used as a basis for robust system designs. They include requirements and recommendations for protecting personnel and equipment, system behavior and device performance. Regulations and standards, together with device characteristics, form the basis for evaluating calculation and simulation results. Several software tools, e.g. PSS®SINCAL, PSS®NETOMAC, PSS®E, PSCAD, ETAP, PowerFactory, are used for power system analysis.

Power system analyses include: load flow analyses, short-circuit and fault analyses, protective device coordination and settings, harmonic analyses, dynamic and transient analyses, grounding studies, switching operations and insulation coordination.

Contact

Prof. Dr. Markus Zink

Phone
+49 9721 940-8498
E-Mail
markus.zink[at]thws.de
Visiting Address
Ignaz-Schön-Straße 11
97421 Schweinfurt
Room
2.2.05
Office Hours

Office hour upon agreement.

Please contact me by mail.

Profile picture Prof. Dr. Markus Zink

Assisted Grid Planning

The classic planning of electrical grids with their short- to long-term time horizon is already often implemented in an automation framework, so that a grid planner can initially take many planning premises into account independently of the network level:

  • Use case-specific conditions, e.g.
  • Request for connection from new consumers or new producers
  • planned maintenance or switching measures
  • different grid expansion variants as possible paths for development
  • long-term forecasts on consumer, generation and storage development trajectories
  • Operating scenarios based on standard profiles, predictions or measurement data
  • optimized design parameters of operating resources and control devices
  • different optimization goals with regard to voltage maintenance, loss minimization, degree of self-sufficiency, stability aspects and other criteria
  • and other…

However, the result range of the combination of these planning premises is very large even when using a small part of the combinatorics and automatically forces the classic grid planner to reduce the considerations in terms of regional grid coverage, time horizon, consideration of operating scenarios and other dimensions. In this way, the grid planner manages to do justice to his tasks, but in view of the current developments, he is heavily burdened by the many parallel development strands and political and social demands. Additional colleagues take on some of the work, but the measures developed must be prioritized and synchronized with regard to the optimization goals.

However, fully automated grid planning, from which the overall optimized decisions regarding connection requests, investments and operating resource parameterization are directly derived, appears to be neither realistic nor expedient. The human or engineer factor will continue to play an important role in electrical power systems in the coming decades and the aim is not to replace them completely, but rather to enable them to carry out their tasks efficiently and well without being overloaded. Assisted grid planning offers the planner:

  • Derivation of data sets and automated implementation of use cases,
  • the efficient and high-performance consideration of the combinatorics of the planning premises,
  • Development of suitable proposals for measures based on the experience of classic grid planning and new methods,
  • effective verification of proposed measures and basis for decision-making for implementation,
  • Synchronization of the measures to be implemented from multiple processes or regions

The assessment and decision-making authority remains with the grid planner; at the same time, the burden on the planner is significantly reduced and he can use his experience to make good decisions for the grid operators and the entire energy supply.

If you are interested in our activities in this subject area, please contact the contact person listed below.

Contact

Prof. Dr. Markus Zink

Phone
+49 9721 940-8498
E-Mail
markus.zink[at]thws.de
Visiting Address
Ignaz-Schön-Straße 11
97421 Schweinfurt
Room
2.2.05
Office Hours

Office hour upon agreement.

Please contact me by mail.

Profile picture Prof. Dr. Markus Zink

Automated Grid Vulnerability Identification and Simulation-supported Grid Management

The need for high-performance assistance systems in power system planning and management becomes clear, not least in events such as the continental European system splits in January and July 2021 - with the premise of primarily avoiding such cascading error sequences in the future, and secondarily ensuring safe handling if they occur to prepare and, tertiarily, to enable secure and resilient resynchronization. The risk of large-scale shutdowns that arise as a result of such events, affecting all lower grid levels, can lead to significantly more social, economic and technical consequences than before and should therefore receive more attention. Enabling preventive and curative measures in the semi-autonomous operation of large-scale transmission grids is a main objective of the subject area.

As part of our research activities, we are working, among other things, on automated vulnerability detection (Grid Vulnerabilities Identification) for the application area of ​​medium-term and operational network planning as well as on simulation-supported grid management (Grid Operation Decision Support) for the application area of ​​semi-autonomous grid management. We focus on the dynamic power system states as these are included in the established stability concept according to IEEE PES (Resonance, Converter-driven, Rotor Angle, Voltage, Frequency).

The three core components to enable the two use cases mentioned above, based on the availability of computing power as well as an automation framework, grid model management and technically sophisticated core simulation algorithms, are:

  • suitable modeling of electrical power system equipment,
  • Algorithms for studying dynamic states in electrical power systems and
  • Application of modern evaluation methods for time and frequency domain

If you are interested in our activities in this subject area, please contact the contact person listed below.

Contact

Prof. Dr. Markus Zink

Phone
+49 9721 940-8498
E-Mail
markus.zink[at]thws.de
Visiting Address
Ignaz-Schön-Straße 11
97421 Schweinfurt
Room
2.2.05
Office Hours

Office hour upon agreement.

Please contact me by mail.

Profile picture Prof. Dr. Markus Zink

Projects

EnerSat

Project name: EnerSat

Project duration: 04/2023 – 04/2024, Phase A

Projekt partners: University of Würzburg, Centre for Telematics (ZfT); University of Passau, Chair of Computer Networks and Computer Communication

Project sponsor: German Aerospace Centre (DLR)

Project manager: Konstantin Schmitt, M. Sc.

Project mamangement: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Anatoli Wellhöfer

The EnerSat research project aims to evaluate and expand modern communication technologies with regard to the future requirements of energy systems based on renewable sources and to show the technical implementation and economic viability in an initial demonstration.

By transforming the energy supply (the focus is on the electrical energy system, but other sectors should also be considered) towards a system based on renewable energy sources that is characterised by

  • Decentralised and cellular energy system at UN level,
  • a centralised energy system with a far-reaching market at TSO level,
  • digitalised and interoperable energy system (communication is fundamental) and
  • multimodal energy system (sector coupling).

The importance of highly secure and highly available communication systems in terms of:

  • Security of supply,
  • cyber security and
  • resilience

is increasing enormously! Potential vulnerabilities in security-critical events, the lack of resilience of communication technology and inadequate availability of communication channels with insufficient access for important stakeholders pose essential risks to society against the backdrop of the enormous importance of the energy system for all areas of life.

The basis of the project is the use of a small satellite system (KSS) for two tasks:

  • In the event of a disaster, secure and exclusively available connectivity should be available,
  • For normal operation, added value can be generated for the user at the same time, e.g. through monitoring services as part of asset protection or for grid monitoring, e.g. line monitoring.

In phase A (until April 2024) of the project, the feasibility of a sovereign communication channel for highly secure and black start-capable communication of energy network operators based on a formation/constellation of micro-satellites is to be demonstrated.

The methodological approach of the IEHT within the framework of the project includes, among other things, the identification and analysis of    Relevant stakeholders for the application of a KSS

  •     Interdependencies of network and communication states to a system state
  •     potential use cases for a KSS in different system states
  •     Requirements for the use cases as part of workshops (primary survey)
  •     Advisory Board to validate the results and improve methods
  •     Roll-out of a questionnaire to grid operators in different sectors (secondary survey)
  •     Evaluation and specification of requirements for cooperation partners

If you are a student interested in working on the project, please contact Mr Konstantin Schmitt, M. Sc.  (konstantin.schmitt[at]thws.de).

Bachelor's thesis: "Investigating the potential of a heating network for sustainable heat supply in the village of Schwebenried"

In view of global challenges such as climate change and the limited availability of fossil fuels, a sustainable energy supply is a key task. The rural community of Schwebenried in the district of Main-Spessart wants to take this major social challenge of the energy transition into its own hands and play an active role in shaping it. The newly founded co-operative "Energieversorgung Schwebenried eG" is planning to set up a local heating network to supply local residents with sustainable heat. The heat generated centrally using wood chips and heat pumps will be distributed throughout the village via pipework systems and thus reach individual households. As part of a scientific co-operation between the Institute for Energy and High Voltage Technology at the Würzburg-Schweinfurt Technical University and the energy cooperative, this project is being scientifically supported by a bachelor's thesis and thus provides a basis for further co-operation in the future. The current thesis analyses the local heating network and, in particular, its operation with a heat pump that is supplied with electrical energy from renewable sources. The municipality's long-term goal is to operate the heating network primarily with the help of the heat pump and electricity from nearby wind power and photovoltaic systems and only supplement this with woodchips for peak loads. In order to take a holistic view of the village's energy supply, the topics of electricity and mobility are also important in addition to the heat supply and could be considered in more detail in the future.
 
Supervisor: Prof. Dr.-Ing. M. H. Zink
Student: P. Stöhr
Project partners: Energieversorgung Schwebenried eG, City of Arnstein