• Journal of Appropriate Technology
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.62-69
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• 2019

Supplying stable electric power is one of the important objectives of the Official Development Assistance (ODA) because it is strongly related with improving living standards and income levels in the region. However, rural areas in many developing countries are not properly connected to national power grids, and even areas connected to national power grids are frequently blacked out due to limitations in power capacity. These lack of electric power is a major obstacle to improving income levels and improving living standards in those areas. The Korea-Tanzania Innovative and Energy Center (iTEC), which was established by Seoul National University in cooperation with the Nelson-Mandela Africa Institute of Science and Technology and Technology (NM-AIST) try to build a small solar power plant using a smart-off grid in rural area of Tanzania, where there is no electricity. 10 kW and 7 kW solar power plants are built in Mkalama Village in Kilimanajaro Region and Ngurdoto Village in Arusha Region to provide power to about 50 households each. In addition, smart monitoring systems were installed to collect data about status of power system and power consumption of each house. iTEC seeks for sustainable improvement the income level and quality of life of rural residents in developing countries through the construction of small solar power plants using smart-off grid, and the implementation of various connected projects.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers A
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• v.51 no.11
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• pp.535-543
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• 2002

Modern power grids are becoming more and more stressed with the load demands increasing continually. Therefore large stressed power systems exhibit complicated dynamic behavior when subjected to small disturbance. Especially, it is needed to analyze special conditions which make small signal stability structure varied according to operating conditions. This paper shows that the relation between small signal stability structure varied according to operating conditions. This paper shows that the relation between small signal stability and operating conditions can be identified well using node-focus point and 1:1 resonance point. Also, the weak point which limits operating range is found by the analysis of resonance condition, and it is shown that reactive power compensation may solve the problem in the weak points. The proposed method is applied to test systems, and the results illustrate its capabilities.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2014.10a
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• pp.294-297
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• 2014

A Shipboard power system consists of three or four diesel generator sets connected to a grid. In case of dual fuel diesel generator sets employed LNG ship as a prime mover, large amounts of electricity are required for electric propulsion, auxiliary machinery and accommodation facilities. The electrical connection between generators through a network, torsional vibration can lead power swings. In this paper, the influence on the network by the torsional vibration of diesel generator sets in grid operation were studied. The torsional vibration characteristics were investigated and analyzed through theoretical analysis and the vibration measurement and the results were presented.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.1596-1604
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• 2013

Coordinating operation between large-scale wind power and thermal units in multiple time scale is an important problem to keep power balance, especially for the power grids mainly made up of large coal-fired units. The paper proposes a novel operation mode of multi-scale unit commitment (abbr. UC) that includes mid-term UC and day-ahead UC, which can take full advantage of insufficient flexibility and improve wind power accommodation. First, we introduce the concepts of multi-scale UC and then illustrate the benefits of introducing mid-term UC to the wind-coal intensive grid. The paper then formulates the mid-term UC model, proposes operation performance indices and validates the optimal operation mode by simulation cases. Compared with day-ahead UC only, the multi-scale UC mode could reduce the total generation cost and improve the wind power net benefit by decreasing the coal-fired units' on/off operation. The simulation results also show that the maximum total generation benefit should be pursued rather than the wind power utilization rate in wind-coal intensive system.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.1831-1840
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• 2018

During a power swing, distance relays may mistakenly spread fault throughout the power grid, causing a great deal of damage. In some cases, such mistakes can cause global outages. For this reason, it is critical to make a distinction between power swings and faults in distance relays. In this paper, a new method is proposed based on RMS measurement to differentiate between faults and power swings. The proposed method was tested on two standard grids, demonstrating its capability in detecting a power swing and simultaneous fault with power swing. This method required no specific configurations, and was independent of grid type and zoning type of distance relays. This feature in practice allows the relay to be installed on any grid with any kind of coordination. In protective relays, the calculations applied to the microprocessor is of great importance. Distance relays are constantly calculating the current RMS values for protection purposes. This mitigates the computations in the microprocessor to detect power swings. The proposed method was able to differentiate between a fault and a power swing. Furthermore, it managed to detect faults occurring simultaneously with power swings.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.1844-1854
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• 2018

Isolated power systems (IPS) are often characterized by a weak grid due to small power grids. The grid side voltage is no longer equivalent to an ideal voltage source of an infinitely big power grid. The conversion control of new energy sources, parameter perturbations as well as the load itself can easily cause the system voltage to oscillate or to become unstable. To solve this problem, increasing the energy-storage power sources is usually used to improve the reliability of a system. In order to provide support for the voltage, the energy-storage power source inverter needs an method to control the voltage source. Therefore, this paper has proposed the active damping control of a voltage source inverter (VSI) based on virtual compensation. By simplifying the VSI double closed-loop control, two feedback compensation channels have been constructed to reduce the VSI output impedance without changing the characteristics of the voltage gain of a system. This improvement allows systems to operate stably in a larger range. A frequency-domain analysis, and simulation and experimental results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.26 no.6_3
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• pp.1259-1267
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• 2023

In recent years, as the demand for distributed power has increased, the need for microgrids connected to grid power and renewable power generation sources has emerged. In the case of DC microgrids, reactive power does not occur, and power conversion losses are reduced compared to AC when connecting to the load and power grid[2]. With the revitalization of the DC distribution network industry, various studies and demonstrations of DC microgrids have been carried out. In the case of the recent unit distribution, its stability and effectiveness have been verified through empirical and research analysis. However, there is a lack of empirical tests to prevent chain accidents for the protection of the power grid circuits and the misoperation of the distributed power system caused by individual accidents when connecting various distributed power sources and power grids. In this paper, the operation plan of a stable multi-circuit DC distribution connection for the demonstration site was verified through the protection cooperation and operation algorithm for the stable linkage management of the DC distribution network composed of such a multi-circuit.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.1304-1310
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• 2015

In remote islands, due to expense of existing generation systems, installation of photovoltaic cells (PVs) and wind turbines has a chance of reducing generation costs. However, in island power systems, even short-term power fluctuations change the frequency of grids because of their small inertia constant. In order to compensate power fluctuations, the authors proposed the power consumption control of pumps which send water to tanks. The power control doesn’t affect water users’ convenience as long as tanks hold water. Based on experimental characteristics of a pump system, this paper shows methods to determine reference power consumption of the system with compensation for short-term PV fluctuations while satisfying water demand. One method uses a PI controller and the other method calculates reference power consumption from water flow reference. Simulations with a PV and a pump system are carried out to find optimum parameters and to compare the methods. Results show that both PI control method and water flow calculation method are useful for satisfying the water demand constraint. The water demand constraint has a little impact to suppression of the short-term power fluctuation in this condition.

• Journal of Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.1-6
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• 2016

Several efforts to replace the use of existing fossil energy resources have already been made around the world. As a result, a new industry of renewable energy has been created, and efficient energy distribution and storage has been promoted intensively. Among the newly explored renewable energy sources, the most widely used one is solar energy generation, which has a high market potential. An energy storage system (ESS) is a system as required. In this paper, the design and implementation of an ESS for the efficient use of power in stand-alone street lights is presented. In current ESS applied to stand-alone street lights, either 12V~24V DC (from solar power) or 110V~220V AC (from commercial power) is used to recharge power in systems with lithium batteries. In this study, an ESS that can support both solar power and commercial power was designed and implemented; it can also perform emergency recharge of portable devices from solar powered street lights. This system can maximize the scalability of ESSes using lithium batteries with efficient energy conversion, with the advantage of being an eco-friendly technology. In a ripple effect, it can also be applied to smart grids, electric vehicles, and new, renewable storage markets where energy storage technology is required.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.643-653
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• 2009

Voltage-controlled voltage source inverter (VCVSI) based distributed generation systems (DGS) using renewable energy sources (RES) is becoming increasingly popular as grid support systems in both remote isolated grids as well as end of rural distribution lines. In VCVSI based DGS for load voltage stabilization, the power angle between the VCVSI output voltage and the grid is an important design parameter because it affects not only the power flow and the power factor of the grid but also the capacity of the grid, the sizing of the decoupling inductor and the VCVSI. In this paper, the steady state modeling and analysis in terms of power flow and power demand of the each component in the system at the different values of maximum power angle is presented. System design considerations are examined for various load and grid conditions. Experimental results conducted on a I KVA VCVSI based DGS prove the analysis and simulation results.