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Post-Doctoral Researcher
Research
Di Zhang received her Bachelor degree in Chemical
Engineering from Dalian University of Technology in 2006 and Master
degree from Helsinki University of Technology in 2008. Her research
area was on plant design and process automation. Now her research topic
is on microgrid optimization.
Research project
Title: Fair settlement among participants in microgrid
Microgrids are emerging as an integral feature of the
future power systems and are considered as a promising alternative to
centralized generation. Microgrid can operate in both grid connected
and islanded modes in case of external faults. As a localized network,
a microgrid includes integrating loads, distributed generators and
energy storage devices. The distributed generators applicable for a
microgrid comprise emerging technologies, such as combined heat and
power (CHP) micro turbines, wind generators, photovoltaic arrays, PV
panels and fuel cells and also some well established generators, such
as small hydro.
Energy storage devices are applied to balance the power and energy demand with generation, in case of disturbances and significant load changes. Batteries, fly-wheels and super-capacitors are more applicable for microgrid among the available energy storage technologies. It operates and fulfils the local energy demands according to its own protocols and standards. It benefits in aspects of economics, environment and security. As a local power network, the participants in a microgrid cooperate and can achieve better economic benefits. However, for all the available models, the objective function is to minimize the global cost for the whole microgrid, costs of respective participant are not under consideration. There is a desire to design a microgrid with a fair settlement which can minimize the equivalent annual cost as a whole while ensuring adequate rewards for each participant. This model can provides both the optimized capacities of candidate technologies as well as the operation schedule.
Supervisors
Dr Lazaros Papageorgiou, Dr Dan Brett and Prof Nilay Shah (Imperial College)
