Science Site,
DH1 2PE
Telephone: +44191 3743931
Fax: +44191 3743838
Email address: Janusz.Bialek@durham.ac.uk
Web: http://www.dur.ac.uk/Engineering/StaffInfo/janusz_bialek.html
Deregulation, Power system dynamics, Control systems, Stability, Power pricing and marketing
The rush towards privatization and deregulation has created many problems which, if unresolved, may hinder the security of supply and result in blackouts and increased price of electricity.
In my research I tackle a range of problems related to the energy pricing,
congestion pricing, and use-of-system pricing. The almost universally accepted
model for the energy pricing is based on the uniform-price auction, under which
all the bidding generators receive the same system clearing price equal to the
accepted bid of the last, most expensive generator. However, experience in the
The other important problem is the congestion management, i.e. what to do when the transmission capacity is not enough to support planned trades. The traditional, marginal-pricing based approach may result in excessive cost to the customers and may worsen the local market power problems. In my research I have proposed some solutions to this problem.
Finally, I have developed a transmission pricing methodology based on the
concept of tracing, i.e. ability to trace how electrical power flows from
individual sources to individual sinks. The methodology is simple, practical
and transparent and it can be used for the allocation of transmission losses
and use-of-system charges. One of the most potentially promising applications
of the methodology is for transmission pricing of cross-border trades in
interconnected networks such as
Large interconnected power systems often suffer weakly damped local and inter-area oscillations between synchronous generators. Damping of these oscillations can be enhanced by a Power System Stabilizer (PSS), which controls generator excitation, or by means of FACTS devices (FACTS is a generic name given to the new generation of high-power electronic devices which enable fast and efficient control of active and reactive power flows in transmission networks). I am a co-author of a novel approach to the design of stabilizers which is based on the non-linear stability theory. First we have applied this methodology to the design of FACTS-based stabilizers and recently we have extended this approach to the design of PSS. We have used a non-linear system model and applied Lyapunov direct method in order to develop decentralized stabilizers which possess the following features: (i) they are robust, i.e. they are not sensitive to the changes in system topology/parameters or changed pattern of power flows in the network; (ii) their damping is effective over a wide range of swing frequencies; and (iii) their settings need not be coordinated. These features of our stabilizers make them especially attractive in the new market structures.