Publications
The effect of timescales on wind farm power variability with nonlinear model predictive control
Wind Energy, 20, 1891-1908, 2017
Status: Published
Citations:
Cite: [bibtex]

Abstract: Model predictive control techniques enable operators to balance multiple objectives in large wind farms, but the controller design depends on modeling effects that propagate at different timescales. This paper uses nonlinear model predictive control to investigate how wind farm power variability can be reduced both by varying ratios of three timescales impacting the system control and by inclusion of a power variability minimization measure in the controller objective function. Tests were conducted to assess how different timescale ratios affect the average farm power and power variability. Power variability measures are shown to be sensitive to the ratio of the incident wind period and the turbine time delay, particularly for cases with dominant incident wind frequencies. The average farm power increases in a series of steps as the controller time horizon increases, which corresponds to time horizon values required for wakes disturbances to propagate to downstream turbines. A second set of tests was conducted in which various measures of power variability were incorporated into the controller objective function and shown to yield significant reductions in farm power variability without significant reductions in farm power output. The controller was found to utilize two different approaches for achieving power variability reduction depending on the formulation of the controller objective function. These results have important implications for the design and operation of wind power plants, including the importance of considering the frequency components of wind during turbine siting and the potential to reduce power variability through the use of farm‐level coordinated control.
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Bongard's work focuses on understanding the general nature of cognition, regardless of whether it is found in humans, animals or robots. This unique approach focuses on the role that morphology and evolution plays in cognition. Addressing these questions has taken him into the fields of biology, psychology, engineering and computer science.
Continuous Self-Modeling. Science 314, 1118 (2006). [Journal Page]

Danforth is an applied mathematician interested in modeling a variety of physical, biological, and social phenomenon. He has applied principles of chaos theory to improve weather forecasts as a member of the Mathematics and Climate Research Network, and developed a real-time remote sensor of global happiness using messages from Twitter: the Hedonometer. Danforth co-runs the Computational Story Lab with Peter Dodds, and helps run UVM's reading group on complexity.

Laurent studies the interaction of structure and dynamics. His research involves network theory, statistical physics and nonlinear dynamics along with their applications in epidemiology, ecology, biology, and sociology. Recent projects include comparing complex networks of different nature, the coevolution of human behavior and infectious diseases, understanding the role of forest shape in determining stability of tropical forests, as well as the impact of echo chambers in political discussions.

Hines' work broadly focuses on finding ways to make electric energy more reliable, more affordable, with less environmental impact. Particular topics of interest include understanding the mechanisms by which small problems in the power grid become large blackouts, identifying and mitigating the stresses caused by large amounts of electric vehicle charging, and quantifying the impact of high penetrations of wind/solar on electricity systems.

Bagrow's interests include: Complex Networks (community detection, social modeling and human dynamics, statistical phenomena, graph similarity and isomorphism), Statistical Physics (non-equilibrium methods, phase transitions, percolation, interacting particle systems, spin glasses), and Optimization(glassy techniques such as simulated/quantum annealing, (non-gradient) minimization of noisy objective functions).