Project PI: Prof. Yasser Gaber Dessouky
Project Team: Dr. Hossam ElDin Mostafa, Dr. Ahmed Abou ElFarag, and Eng. Ahmed Gouda
Research area: Power Systems/ Smart Grids
Abstract
Smart Electrical Grids have acquired nowadays a large interest in the electrical load distribution balancing problem. In case the loads connected to the three phases are unbalanced, load reconnection to other phases is performed manually, which is a tedious and expensive task to perform that requires qualified personnel to perform the task in addition to load disconnection and hence electric supply service interruption.
The proposed solution in this project treats the phase unbalance and the large value of neutral conductor current. Subsequently all over- and/or under-voltage problems are then greatly reduced. In addition to the power switching unit, which is to be designed in order to transfer the load from one specific phase to another, automatically and instantly with no delays, depending on the actual case of loading in all the neighboring loads.
The advantages of the proposed automatic system for smart load balancing problem, include but are not limited to:
- Provide an up-to-date balanced operation of three-phase systems
- Help to continuously avoid unbalance problems and losses.
- Easy to install on any system with almost no significant changes in the distribution system.
- Allow the user to monitor the load current and its phase angle at any time.
- Allow the central computer to monitor all the individual single-phase loads at any time, and to generate an alarm when there exists a fault in any single-phase load.
- Provide a database for the historical values of each load at the central PC.
- Provide remote monitoring of the system status and history using a web interface.
- Power factor correction can be achieved.