Speaker: Hugo Nestor Villegas Pico, Postdoctoral Researcher of Power Engineering at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado
Title: Advances to the Dynamic Analysis of Power Converter-Based Systems
Abstract: This seminar sets forth a reachability analysis approach to study the dynamic response of wind turbines to uncertain voltage disturbances. This topic is motivated by voltage ride-through codes which mandate wind turbines to remain connected for a range of terminal voltages that are bounded by time-domain envelopes. The principle of the method is the calculation of state-space sets or reachable sets that contain, for example, all possible turbine state trajectories as being driven by uncertain voltage disturbances. To elucidate further reachability theory, the discussion will introduce recent advances that reveal deleterious inputs that drive the state trajectories of a linear dynamic system to the boundaries of its reachable sets. The exposition will also incorporate the essence of related research work to study bulk power systems with variable renewable generation; to identify proprietary converter control models from measurements; and to engineer reliable synchronization methods for converter-based generation. These efforts are instrumental to motivate significant research topics pertaining stability theory of multi-machine multi-converter grids; reliability of converter-based systems; and simulation of converter-dominant power systems.
Bio: Hugo N. Villegas Pico received the degree of Ingeniero en electrónica, automatización y control from Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas – ESPE, Sangolquí, Ecuador, in 2008; the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA, in 2011; and the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA, in 2016. He was a Fulbright scholar for 2009–2011. His Ph.D. work was recognized with a best paper award in the IEEE Transactions on Energy Conversion and an IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) Prize Paper Award. Hugo was a Supervisor of electrical maintenance at the Guangopolo power station, CELEC EP-Termopichincha, Ecuador for 2007–2009 and a Post-Doctoral Research Assistant at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA for 2016–2017. Currently, he is a Post-Doctoral Researcher of Power Engineering at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO, USA. His research interests lie at the intersection of renewable energy conversion, power engineering, control systems, and computational analysis of dynamical systems.
ECpE Seminar Host: Zhaoyu Wang