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Megagrant recipient and head of new energy lab on real-time digital simulations for cleaner power supply

The winner of a Russian government megagrant, Skoltech Professor Vladimir Terzija will head the Institute’s newly established Laboratory of Modern Energy Systems. In this interview, he talked about how the lab will contribute to attaining a sustainable trajectory of economic development in the vast country that Russia is by facilitating the integration of clean energy into the power supply system.

Q: Tell us about the thinking behind your new lab at Skoltech.

A: Firstly, this laboratory will be a result of a recently approved Megagrant project titled Advanced Monitoring, Protection and Control of Future Power Systems (AMPaC), where I am acting as the principal investigator. The goal of the Laboratory of Modern Energy Systems, which we are planning to establish, is to provide a very specific contribution to the so-called green, or clean, energy agenda.

In addition, note that I have joined Skoltech as a new full professor, motivated to become a part of the Skoltech family — this is fully decoupled from the awarded Megagrant project. That project is a result of separate activity, and I am happy that today I am both with Skoltech, but also the PI of the Megagrant project and the head of the Laboratory of Modern Energy Systems at Skoltech.

Perhaps one of the highest achievements of human civilization is the existing electrical power and energy system we have around us — we are not always aware that there is high tech around us contributing to the uninterrupted delivery of electrical power to customers.

Existing electrical power systems are a part of each nation’s critical infrastructure, which requires enormous efforts and massive attention of every country on the planet, including the Russian Federation, which has both a modern and geographically enormous electrical power grid. And such a system must operate reliably, it must be secure, operate economically, and at the same time, it must satisfy the expectations of society.

The existing electrical power system, and I mean the system that existed 40-50 years ago, was a system in which so-called primary energy, which is, for example, fossil fuel energy, was extensively utilized and just burnt. Consequently, the question is, do we have enough of such primary energy to secure our supply hundreds of years into the future? The answer is, unfortunately, no, we do not. That is one of the challenges calling for new investments, research and advanced applications.

Another problem is that we also have unaffordable emission of CO2, causing air pollution and the greenhouse effect warming up the planet. Our duty is to reduce pollution and switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources like wind and solar power. They will help us to ensure the sustainability of energy production and consequently smooth and unconstrained energy utilization.

But these renewable energy sources have to be integrated into the existing power system. This integration is causing the system to become more and more uncertain and technically very complex. Optimal integration of renewable energy sources into the existing system requires very careful attention to several aspects so that we have a secure and reliable system with clean, environmentally friendly and economical energy produced and delivered to customers, to all of us.

To achieve that, we are using the most advanced technology and top science. These are, for example, new sensors, new information and communication technology, or advanced supercomputing facilities. We are also utilizing satellite technology for different purposes, for example, for time synchronization of a massive number of thousands of thousands of devices, which are metering voltage, current, power, frequency, temperature, etc. So we have the technology, and the challenge is to develop new algorithms and new methods for optimally using this technology to ensure the stability and security of the power system.

People like to talk about smart grids, it is a buzzword, but it means utilization of new technology, including new sensors and ICT, to support optimal operation of a system with a high penetration of renewable energy sources. And through the AMPaC Megagrant project, we want to develop new approaches for optimal monitoring, control and protection of such a new system with lots of inverter-connected renewable energy sources.

Q: What is the biggest challenge you are facing?

A: If we develop new complex and efficient methods, these methods cannot be immediately implemented into the existing power system. Firstly, they must be tested. And this kind of testing can be done only in very specialized laboratories, in laboratories where we have to have so-called real-time digital simulators, or RTDS. It is a kind of supercomputer where electrical power system dynamics is modelled using the most sophisticated models — like a flight simulator, but it simulates the operation of a huge electrical power system with lots of measuring devices and lots of data which we can gather from such a system.

We will start by developing an appropriate model of a system that will be implemented in RTDS. It will produce massive quantities of data, which we will also transfer to a specially designed and developed data acquisition system, the so-called data concentrator. And in this data concentrator we will develop real-time applications for optimal monitoring, protection, and control of future electrical power systems.

This laboratory will offer us an opportunity for so-called hardware-in-the-loop testing. This means that we will have real-time operation of a modelled power system. There will be data coming from this system to the external control component which we want to test, and then signals are coming back to the real system.

We are dealing with a complex electrical power system which is part of capital infrastructure of significant importance for the Russian Federation. We will give our contribution to the sustainability of energy production and optimal utilization of renewable energy sources. Through this laboratory, we will develop new approaches for optimal integration of renewable resources from the perspective of monitoring, protecting, and controlling the entire new future power system.

Q: Could you talk a bit more about RTDS — what do you hope to achieve with it?

A: Well, the RTDS is a computer in which real-time dynamic simulation of an electrical power system is solved in a very clever way so that the bulk power system is separated into several parts, and then the dynamic simulation is done by integrating these separate parts.

At this stage, our focus will be on contributing to the development of mathematical models of real power system components like generators, transformers, transmission lines or other components which we have and their integration into one single test system and assessment of physical phenomena, which are rather complex considering the integration of renewable energy sources.

I expect that from the perspective of RTDS, we will give our contribution in the form of new applications in wide-area monitoring, control, and protection of future power systems. When it comes to protection, I am particularly keen to demonstrate how approaches for detecting cascading events and prevention of power system blackouts can work and be applied to avoid, e.g., blackouts like the one that recently happened in India, where 700 million people were affected and left without electricity. We must make sure that something similar never happens in Russia.

Q: What do you personally find interesting about this subject? Why are you interested in this particular challenge?

A: Well, one of the particular technical challenges is that, in an electrical power system, a real-time balance of produced and used electrical energy must exist. Any imbalance must be instantaneously compensated; otherwise, the system loses its stability. A related problem is it’s hard to find an easy way to store large quantities of electrical energy. However, we will try to utilize the existing expertise from CEST with its top experts and many results related to battery storage development. So that’s a particularly interesting goal for me to utilize all this expertise pertaining to the development of next-generation battery storage units, which we will hopefully successfully use for optimal and stable operation of electrical power systems.

Another exciting aspect is my expectations that we will be implementing complex science, including data analytics and big data approaches. There are at least several top experts in Moscow who will be linked to the project and who will hopefully inspire me and be inspired too. I am particularly ambitious to use 5G technology for data transfer.

Q: What are your hopes and expectations for working at Skoltech?

A: I feel a very positive atmosphere here at Skoltech, where I am surrounded by excellent students and top scientists from different research areas. I think that collaborative efforts are in line with the highest international standards, and I see a very inspiring academic culture that is based on the highest international standards too. By this, I also understand the standards and expectations related to the top results which we should create in the future, in the form of publications in high-impact journals, patents, and hopefully also a spin-off company which will, for example, be oriented toward hardware-in-the-loop testing of future smart grid solutions for power systems.

I am here particularly intellectually inspired to open new research avenues. We in academia don’t like routine, at least I don’t like it. I like positive changes, I like to be challenged intellectually, and I am indeed challenged here, for example, to lead the AMPaC Megagrant project successfully, to support younger faculty members, to share my life experience with my students, particularly those gathered from industry, e.g., Asea Brown Boveri (ABB, Germany), the famous world leader in manufacturing power and automation products. At Skoltech, I am surrounded by applied scientists who talk about complex methods which could be adequately applied, and my role is to be able to understand their messages and thoughts, but also to direct them toward products that will make a positive impact on the Russian economy and society in general terms.

I also really like the international atmosphere at Skoltech. It is essential to bring in culture from different countries, which is then converted through synergy into excellent results, high-quality teaching, and students being happy to be at Skoltech.

I feel that in my academic career, where I used to work at different academic institutions including the University of Belgrade in Serbia, universities in Germany, the University of Manchester in the U.K., then for six years in the industry, working with ABB — now I am really in an environment which has everything that intellectually challenges me and brings me back to the time when I was 30, and I am not 30 now (laughs) — such a good feeling!

Q: Is this your first time in Russia?

A: No, it is not. I was in Russia for the first time on an excursion as a final-year student at the University of Belgrade, it was in 1987, and at that time, it was USSR. I used to read Chekhov, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Pushkin, Tolstoy when I was in secondary school, so Russian culture and Russian literature were with us on a daily basis, we talked about literature, we also listened to Russian classical music, those giants like Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff. Through my primary and secondary musical education in piano music school in Belgrade, I could touch the emotions and inspirations of Russian composers, but now I am at the place where this music was composed, and this is a fantastic feeling. However, I am delighted to be in the Russian Federation, the country with so many undiscovered dimensions that I am more than keen to explore.

 

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