Semester

Fall

Date of Graduation

2011

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MS

College

Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources

Department

Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering

Committee Chair

Ali Feliachi.

Abstract

The electric power grid is inherently a huge network that has been going through a lot of transformation because of its restructuring and increase in the deployment of Distributed Generation. The steep increase in electricity demand and the large financial losses caused by the blackouts has initiated research towards increasing the security and robustness of the electric grid and making it a Smart Grid. Smart Grids might incorporate MicroGrids, which can be defined as low to medium voltage networks that contain aggregation of certain loads and Distribution Generation units that can operate in either grid-connected or islanded mode. One of the leading technologies to deploy intelligence in the electric grid is the agent technology. Multi Agent systems are basically a congregation of individual agents that can sense changes in their environment and autonomously make decisions to meet their design objectives. The technological advancement in the agent technology can provide solutions for a wide range of Smart Grid activities.;In a MicroGrid, a single fault can lead to catastrophic, cascading events that could result in a blackout. This makes fault location an important problem to solve. The penetration of Distributed Generation units causes a two way power flow in the traditional radial distribution system. This, coupled with the inherent unbalanced nature of the distribution system, makes the fault location a difficult problem to solve.;In this thesis, a Multi Agent system has been formulated to determine the precise fault location and identify faulty zones. The algorithm for the fault detection is based on the magnitude of the sequence components of currents and current directions during a fault in the system.;The agent model for the fault detection has been implemented in the software named Java Agent Development Framework. The distribution test system used for this work is the IEEE 37 bus system. In order to simulate the MicroGrid, Distributed Generation units are added at various nodes in the test system. This circuit has been simulated in a distribution system simulation software, OpenDSS. All the possible fault cases for different penetration levels of Distributed Generation are considered and tested. Some of these fault cases have been presented in this thesis.

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