Background and motivation: The power grid is of great complexity in its network topology. The decentralization and distribution of the energy system empowers more connections in the power grid, while also increasing the network complexity. The integration of renewables like wind and solar power adds to the complexity further due to their intermittent production. This complicates the analysis of power grid stability and efficiency when considering a national grid level.
Figure: Complexity of the power grid taking the example of Norway
What you will do: In this thesis, you will work on analyzing the power grid at a national level. You will review methodologies in evaluating power grid, and establish the evaluation metrics. You will build the model (or a simplified model) that simulates the Norwegian power grid based on our accumulated and openly released data. You will analyze the bottlenecks or pain-points of the Norwegian power grid, and provide prognosis about conditions that can lead to incidents in power supply.
Figure: Municipal energy consumption and main power grid topology in Norway
Expected outcomes: From this thesis, it is expected the results including (i) the establishment of methodology and metrics in evaluating national level power grid (ii) simulation model for the Norwegian power grid (iii) numerical analysis of Norwegian power grid regarding the established evaluation metrics (iv) identification of bottlenecks/pain-points in the power grid with numerical analysis (v) provide possible actions that can be taken to enhance the power grid and analyze the potential improvement quantitatively.
Skills needed: Programming language in MATLAB/Simulink and Python, or other languages that you are experienced with. Knowledge with GIS softwares like QGIS or ArcGIS will be good but not required.