Project page:  http://www.interreg-danube.eu/3smart

Current tendencies in the Danube Region (DR) to integration of energy-efficiency (EE) measures and renewable energy (RE) are not followed by EE&RE adequate interactions to enable cost-optimal operation of the building as a whole. Distribution system operators (DSOs) are reluctant in allowing additional capacities of intermittent RE in the grid as they engage investments into the grid and a costly reserve for secure operation. DSOs are interested in introducing coordinated energy exchange with prosumers through dynamically changing conditions, e.g. via optimized price profiles for netto energy exchange. Currently neither of the countries in the DR has regulatory/technology framework developed for inception of building-grid cross-spanning energy management schemes.
The main objective of the 3Smart project is to provide a technological and legislative setup for cross-spanning energy management of buildings, grids and major city infrastructures in the DR. It will provide optimal economical value to EE&RE investment in the building and optimized costs on the grid side and motivate installation of distributed storages for improving energy security in the DR.
The project outputs are: (i) Modular software tool for energy management on building and distribution grid side, (ii) Five pilot actions in different DR countries including buildings and grids with intersected technology/regulatory setups and (iii) Strategy to enable city-wide energy management at the regulatory level in the DR.
Main target groups are regulatory energy agencies/ministries (for updating regulatory set-up), DSOs and suppliers (improving grid effectiveness), local authorities and regional energy agencies (reducing RoI for investments in RE&EE); R&D institutions (new modules development).
Major innovative moment is in vertical two-way synchronization through all the modules via simple interfaces to attain optimal operation of the buildings and the grid, and easy modules add-on to the existing systems.

POC-DAWN - Proof of Concept for Damping Generator Vibrations and Large Wind Turbine Noise by Advanced Control of Power Converters

The project investigates technical realization possibility for reduction of common torque and speed oscillations of wind turbine generator that occur due to variable air-gap, non-homogenous magnetic material of stator and rotor, production imperfections, inherent or fault-induced asymmetries and other characteristics caused by real machine physics and geometry, all of which are summed into the term anisotropy. With compensation of oscillations by forming the corresponding power converter voltage references, the concept significantly reduces generator vibrations that are further reflected on the whole wind turbine in the form of expressed noise and enhanced structural loads. 

Proof of concept will determine technical possibilities of identification and compensation of wind turbine generator anisotropy and level of reduction of corresponding negative effects by using the power converter control signals. Required modifications to the existing conventional control system will be investigated for modular design and implementation to already existing or new wind turbines.

The project encompasses the followig activities: (1) identification and modeling of generator anisotropy, (2) experimental verification of control concept for generator anisotropy compensation, (3) concept extension for all common wind turbine generator types, (4) protection of potentially emerged intellectual property, and (5) analysis of existing similar solutions in the area and establishment of commercialization strategies.

Project website: http://www.fer.unizg.hr/3con

Buildings and railway traffic systems are examples of complex technical systems that consume significant energy amounts so as to enable their inner processes to evolve as required. Thereby the requirements on dynamic functioning of these systems can be achieved by different system interactions, whereas some of them are more preferable than the others from the standpoints of energy consumption or other criteria like price of operation or equivalent pollution.

The global objective of the project 3CON is to research and develop optimal control techniques on significantly different large consumers – building systems and railway traffic systems – in conceptually identical way: by applying the principle of hierarchical decomposition of systems and cooperative optimal controls between the hierarchy levels. Computed energy consumption profile on the lower level directly maximizes the global economic gain of the system operation in the presence of system constraints (e.g. allowed temperatures or fixed train travelling time). This finally enables the proactive role of these largest consumers in energy grids of the future (smart grids). The project is coordinated by Assoc. Prof. Mario Vašak, PhD.

Project page: http://fer-kiet.fer.hr

Advanced technologies in power systems and railway vehicles (FER-KIET) project has the main goal of creation of new knowledge and technologies with commercial application to power systems and railway vehicles. Project is performed as collaboration between Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing and industrial partner Končar - Electrical Engineering Institute (KIET).

The project focus is: Component model of system for temperature measurements in power systems by using optically distributed sensory and power supply concept for sensors of rotational machine from surrounding energy. System for observing changes in battery behaviour during the microgrid operation and system for anticipation of accessability of renewable energy sources on over the horizon of free weather forecasts. Platform for systematic installation of microgrids adjusted for specific technical needs and conditions. Modulation method of the diode-coupled three-level inverter for voltage distortion reduction of neutral point at the front of inverter and for balancing losses of power electronic switches. Method for delay time compensation of three-level inverter and voltage drops on power electronics switches. Efficient energy saving of regenerative tram breaking to chosen energy storage and algorithm for energy exchange among multiple storages. Application for detection and monitoring of obstacles in front of the driving tram.

Project website: http://urbanwater-ict.eu

Improving the efficiency of water management in Europe has been recognised by the European Commission as essential for overcoming the growing exposure of European countries to water scarcity and droughts. UrbanWater proposes a platform that will enable a better and end-to-end water management in urban areas, accounting for 17% of fresh water consumption in the EU.

Scientific and technological challenges focused in the project are: To effectively estimate water demand in urban areas in order to efficiently manage water supply chains. To reduce waste of water and economic losses associated to leakages in the urban water distribution network. To smoothen daily water demand daily peaks in order to allow distributors to save costs related to the urban water distribution networks’ management. To guarantee efficient and secure computational data management on the base of smart grids’ recent and upcoming deployments in Europe. To reduce operating and maintenance costs associated with water metering and billing in urban areas. To incentivise urban household’s to reduce current consumption and soften the current European water demand peaks, side-by-side with decreasing their own water expenditures. To build effective partnerships and develop innovation synergies between equipment providers, ICT companies and water distributors.

Project website: http://www.enhems-buildings.fer.hr

Energy audits result in static models of energy demands needed in order to maintain acceptable comfort conditions in buildings. In reality building energy consumption usually shows significant deviations – the reason for this is the building comfort control in dynamically changing inner and outer operative conditions of the building. Predictive control techniques will in the optimal way gather the whole building dynamic model with available information on meteorological conditions and forecast into an algorithm of energy-efficient building control.

Global trend of energy prices rise puts buildings into focus, as technical systems responsible for 40% of energy consumed by mankind. Major research endeavours are performed globally in different technical areas which can contribute to buildings’ energy-efficiency. Information-communication technologies (ICT) have a prominent role in this as they enable incorporation of different technological solutions into a unique system adaptable to the buildings itself and different modes of its use.

The action Enhancement of Research, Development and Technology Transfer Capacities in Energy Management Systems for Buildings (ENHEMS-Buildings) aims to fill the gap in Croatian ICT base within the area of all-inclusive energy-efficient control of comfort in buildings, and unlocks the development possibilities for own competitive solutions. In order to accomplish that, ENHEMS-Buildings joins contributions in optimal and predictive control, meteorology, open building automation systems and telecommunication systems. That is accomplished through cooperation of the action partners and associates – University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER, the applicant), Meteorological and Hydrological Service, Elma Kurtalj Ltd. and Hrvatski Telekom d.d.

Project website: http://www.ceestructhealth.eu

Centre of Excellence for Structural Health project aims at increase of competence of the Croatian Higher Education Institution (HEIs) and industry in the areas of structural integrity, monitoring and the control of dynamically loaded engineering structures. The objective of the project is to establish the centre of excellence for structural health analysis and to establish cooperation between the involved HEIs and industry for mutual benefit, with a significant involvement of students. By achieving the stated objective, the final beneficiaries, such as future students, community and national economy in general, will be supported, since knowledge growth and the increased competence of students and engineers will lead to the overall enhancement of economy and society.

In the project scope, the knowledge and expertise of four interdisciplinary research groups will be combined, including three partners from two Universities and one associate coming from the business sector (KONČAR-Electrical Engineering Institute, Inc.). During the project, extensive research on the KONČAR-Wind Turbine of 2.5 MW will be conducted in order to develop an advanced wind turbine control system.

The project is focused on verifying technical realisation and on patenting of protected intellectual property entitled Generator fault-tolerant control for a variable-speed variable-pitch wind turbine (US 8,928,165 B2). The key characteristics of the intellectual property in question is an autonomous reaction on the diagnosed fault of the wind turbine generator that enables to stop the fault from spreading while enabling as much as possible energy production of an acceptable quality. Control methods tolerant to rotor bar faults of squirrel-cage induction generators, as well as methods tolerant to stator winding isolation faults are developed. In both cases the corresponding protection is applied based on modulation of electromechanical quantities in the electric machine for evading a stress on the fault location. The project is coordinated by Assoc. Prof. Mario Vašak, PhD.

Project website: http://www.will4wind.hr

Dedicated state-of-the-art wind and wind forecasting system designed for the specific and challenging wind climate in Croatia is the focus of Will4Wind project. The overall objective of the project is to increase the wind energy share in Croatia's electricity consumption through science and industry/business partnership resulting in improved a wind energy management. To make an impact and contribute to the main goal, several specific objectives were designed: enhance ALADIN wind prediction capabilities to support the safe and efficient integration of wind power plants into the electric power system; assess the upgrade of performance of the advanced wind prediction system and predict the associated day-to-day forecast uncertainties; integrate the improved wind prediction technology into the forecasting and wind energy management processes; raise awareness about weather-related research results and identify key joint research and development priorities for the benefit of the Croatian industry in the wind energy sector.

An innovative wind forecast system is developed using measured data, numerical weather forecast models and neural networks. Upgrading the performance of the innovative prediction system is evaluated for several wind power plant locations. Wind forecasts are integrated into the wind energy management process by establishing online access to local wind forecasts through web and mobile applications, thus enhancing the management of the national electric grid, as well as the operation of individual wind power plants. The project coordinator at UniZG-FER is Assoc. Prof. Mario Vašak, PhD.

Project website: http://across.fer.hr

The project Centre of Research Excellence for Advanced Cooperative Systems (ACROSS) aimed at unlocking and strengthening the research potential of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing of the University of Zagreb (UNIZG-FER) in the area of cooperative systems related to robotics, networked embedded systems and renewable energy systems. Possible applications of such cooperative systems are numerous: advanced flexible manufacturing, renewable and sustainable energy generation, home and office automation, transport, logistics, environmental monitoring, healthcare, security and surveillance, human augmentation, etc. The ultimate goal of ACROSS is to create a Centre of Research Excellence for Advanced Cooperative Systems within UNIZG-FER, envisioned to be at the forefront of research and development of novel methodologies and advanced engineering approaches for cooperative systems.

Project website: http://www.ieam.tuwien.ac.at/research/mongs/EN

In the past years renewable energy sources like wind energy have gained much attention due to global warming and the scheduled reduction of CO2 emissions. To keep the efficiency of the energy conversion process of wind turbines at or near its optimum value all system components have to be continuously monitored. The most critical and vulnerable components are the gearbox as well as different generator components like windings or bearings. On-line fault detection of inverter controlled generators and mechanical components are usually based on special sensor systems and evaluation instruments which makes these systems expensive and thus usually not profitable in wind turbines. The classical approaches of online condition monitoring methods like current signature analysis are not applicable as the dynamic operation, pulse width modulation and the switching transients of the power electronics devices add additional harmonics and measurement noise to all sensor signals.Operation of wind turbines was investigated to identify possible fault indicators based only on the sensors already available in the power inverter. The research covered the whole electrical power conversion process: from the control algorithms for optimal adaptation to dynamic changing wind speeds to considerations on how the system energy efficiency is reduced by emerging fault conditions of different components and to a practical verification of the detection system on a reduced scale generator system.

Project website: http://www.microgrid.fer.hr

The ever increasing electrical energy demands, limited fossil and nuclear fuel reserves, climate change, the national desire for energy independence and diversification of energy sources, thrust in the first plan distributed production of electric power from renewable sources as a key element in achieving sustainable development. The main problem in the usage of renewable electrical energy sources (REES) is their intermittency, which leads to problems in regulation of the power system. This problem exists both on a local production/storage/consumption level and on the power system level and becomes more pronounced with the increasing contribution of REES in the total energy production. A natural solution is to derive a coordinated and dynamic planning strategy for production/storage/consumption of electric power. With a local information and power-connection of REES, energy storage facilities, and consumers in a system – a microgrid – one can control resulting energy flows while considering techno-economical criteria and the local energy yield forecast. Solution of such problems – via optimization for microgrid design and control – can significantly improve the integration of REES on both the local and the utility grid level.
 

Project website: http://www.ict-aeolus.eu

A key socio-economic challenge for Europe is: how to deal with a climate change, while meeting rapidly increasing demand for energy and ensuring security of supply? Wind energy can be a significant part of the answer. The new frontier of the wind industry is large-scale offshore wind farms. While promising, considerable research and development tasks remain to be carried out before it reaches its full potential in terms of the efficient, stable, safe, predictable and controllable supply of energy. Closed loop control of wind power installations has historically been decentralized and a collection of wind turbines in farms is a highly complex system with interdependencies through the shared resource, the wind. Wind turbines are affected by the wind but they also changes the wind field within the farm through the control. To address objectives related to cost, quality of power and mechanical loads, models and control paradigms must be developed that allow wind resource allocation to individual turbines.

Inspired by the industrial case of complex large-scale distributed offshore wind farms, the Aeolus project aimed at research and development of models that allow real-time predictions of flows and incorporate measurements from a set of spatially distributed sensor devices. In Aeolus, the flow information was used as a basis for new control paradigms, centralized and distributed that acknowledges the uncertainty in the modelling and dynamically manages the flow resource in order to optimise specific control objectives. The model and control principles were used for control of a wind power farm to increase energy quality and reduce the fatigue loads. The usefulness of our techniques was validated on a case study and by physical experiments on a scaled wind power farm.

Project website: http://multiwind.fer.hr

The project was focused on research and development of methodologies for advanced control of the next generation wind turbines with higher unit power (5-10MW). Simulation models for wind turbines with the purpose of wind turbine operation analysis and control system synthesis were developed, which furthermore present the building elements of an integrated wind farm model. Research of advanced wind turbine control methods was performed with emphasis on: optimal rotor speed and generator power control in different weather conditions, reduction of wind turbine structural loads, fatigue reduction, short-term prediction of changes in weather conditions – temporal and spatial wind profile – and adaptation to such changes. Finally, a systematic methodology for the control system synthesis with respect to performance demands and subject to energy and construction limitations was developed with experimental validation on laboratory wind turbine.

Limitations of conventional control methods are painfully obvious when one tries to use them in complex systems such as power engineering and transport systems, which are characterized by the presence of nonlinearities, constraints and coupling of dynamic variables, as well as in the case of discrete-event systems and systems with variable transport delay. For that reason we are currently witnessing an intensive research of the advanced control methods, such as robust, optimal and predictive control based on the mathematical model of the system, sliding mode control, and intelligent control, all of which are increasingly used in control of complex systems. Similar observation can be made about the state and parameter estimation problem, since there is no unified technique for the state estimation of nonlinear systems. Basic assumption of this project is that by using the above mentioned advanced control strategies, together with the modeling, identification and estimation of the system states and parameters one can approach the problem of control of complex technical systems in power engineering, transport and industrial plants in a methodologically unified way, ensuring their good and reliable operation, and optimal use of available resources. The general aim of our research is to improve the expertise and scientific competence, increase the level of acceptance of the new ideas in control of complex systems, and to give our own contribution to the development of those ideas, especially in deriving a unified methodological approach to the modeling and control of complex dynamical systems. This will create a scientific base for the research, development and implementation of advanced control strategies that will improve the performance and safety of complex systems, thereby affecting the industrial productivity, product quality and energy-efficiency with the final goal – increased competitiveness in the world market. Applicability of the results of our research is very broad: power engineering, transport systems, variety of industry sectors, etc. An extensive experimental testing on laboratory plants is planned in order to validate the methodological research and to encourage the application of developed control and estimation algorithms. Furthermore, developed methods will be practically tested in: (i) rail vehicles, (ii) wind power plants and (iii) Croatian electric power system.