Project & Research Grants

Research In Progress

UNIVERSITY OF MALAYA IMPACT-ORIENTED INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH GRANT PROGRAMME (IIRG) 2020-2022

Project code: IIRG001A-2020IISS

Title: Improvement of Power Distribution System Resilience Against Flash Floods

Abstract

Flash floods have been identified as one of the major weather-related events causing power disruption outages in Malaysia. The current practice of switching off all the power substations during the floods leads to huge area of power outages. Therefore, the aim of this research is to improve the resilience of distribution system in ensuring minimize power outages. This research will develop a mathematical model to examine the impact of flash floods on power distribution system. Resilience metric will be proposed to measure preventive and adaptive capabilities of the system. Utilising this resilience metric, a network restoration strategy to reroute the network to supply electrical power by avoiding flooded area will be formulated. Validation of the proposed network restoration strategy will be conducted using IEEE and TNB systems. This research is expected to provide a pragmatic solution to enhance the resilience of power grid at the distribution system against flash floods.

Introduction

Power systems are ill-prepared for natural disasters such as windstorms, floods, and earthquakes. These disastrous events have caused wide-spread power outages and are more frequent in modern times, owing to global climate change. These event leads not only result in loss of energy to the customers and loss of revenue to the utility but also impose indirect costs on society and nation. A resilient distribution system is therefore crucially needed and remarkable efforts are being made to achieve the goal.  Although there are some works in improving distribution system resiliency, the focus causes are on the windstorms. None focusing on the flash floods, which one of the major causes of power outages in Malaysia. Therefore, this work will develop an effective restoration strategy technique for distribution system. Different from existing restoration strategy that addressing single fault at a time, flash floods that can lead to multiple faults will be considered. The developed technique is expected to minimise flash floods impacts on electricity supply, which in turn enhances the power system resilience.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Intentional Islanding Of Large-Scale Power System Post-Island Stability and Operation, Principal Investigator (PI), 2013-2015, Postgraduate Research Grant (PPP), National

Modelling of Intelligent Load Shedding Scheme Incorporating State Estimation for Islanded Distribution Network Operation, Principal Investigator (PI), 2013-2015, ScienceFund, National

Study on the Application of High Order Taylor Series for Improving Load Flow Analysis to Solve Ill-Conditioned Power System Networks, Principal Investigator (PI), 2013-2015, Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS), National

Study on Real Time Energy Efficiency in Distribution Network Using State Estimation (2) Study on the Impact of Photovoltaic Generator Operation to the Distribution Network (3) Development of Efficient State Estimation for Distribution Network Connected with Photovoltaic Generation, Principal Investigator(PI), 2012-2013, Postgraduate Research Grant(PPP), National

To Explore Circuit Reconfiguration Techniques for Minimizing Power Losses in a Distribution Network Connected with Distributed Generation, Principal Investigator(PI), 2011-2013, ERGS, National

Study on the Impact of Solar Energy Penetration on National Power Grid and Its Solutions, Principal Investigator(PI), 2011-2015, HIR, National

Modelling and Analysis of Islanding Operation for Distribution Network Connected with Distributed Generations, Principal Investigator(PI), 2010-2012, ScienceFund, National

Development of Automated Fault Location System Using Limited Measurement Data, Principal Investigator(PI), 2010-2013, Geran Penyelidikan Universiti Malaya (UMRG), National

A suite of Integrated Electrical Power System Analysis Tools, Principal Investigator(PI), 2004-2005, MOSTI(IRPA), National