Luigi Vanfretti of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Distribution grid dynamics will become increasingly complex due to the transition from passive to active networks arising from the increase of renewable energy sources at medium and low voltage levels. A successful transition requires improvement in the observability and awareness of the interactions between Transmission and Distribution (T&D) grids, particularly to guarantee adequate operational security. 

This talk explores how different technical means can facilitate interactions between  TSOs (transmission system operators) and DSOs (distribution system operators) with the utilization of GPS-time-synchronized phasor measurements (aka Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs)) with millisecond reporting resolution. If made available in actual T&D networks, such high-sampled data across operational boundaries allows an opportunity to extract information related to different time-scales; making it possible to address the operational challenges that renewables will bring at all voltage levels.

The work presented in this talked was carried out in part through the EU-funded FP7 IDE4L project (http://ide4l.eu/) by Prof. Luigi Vanfretti’s research team in Sweden, who wishes to build from these results to support utilities in the USA. Some of these results include real-time software tools that have been released as open source software that will be briefly presented in the talk, and are available at: https://github.com/ALSETLab

Biography:

Luigi Vanfretti (IEEE S'03–M'10–SM'13) received the Electrical Engineering degree from Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, Guatemala City, Guatemala, in 2005. He was also a Visiting Researcher with The University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, in 2005. He obtained the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electric power engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA, in 2007 and 2009, respectively. For his research and teaching work toward his Ph.D. degree, he was awarded the Charles M. Close Award from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

He was with KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, as Assistant 2010-2013), and Associate Professor (Tenured) and Docent (2013-2017/August); where he established the SmarTS Lab and research group. During this period, Dr. Vanfretti was also with Statnett SF, the Norwegian electric power transmission system operator, as consultant (2011 - 2012), and Special Advisor in Strategy and in R&D (2013 - 2016).

He joined Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in August 2017 where he continues to conduct research and develop his new laboratory and research team ALSETLab: http://alsetlab.com/

Dr. Vanfretti, served from 2009 to 2016 in the IEEE Power Engineering Society (PES) PSDP Working Group on Power System Dynamic Measurements, in different capacities, including as Chair from 2014-016. In addition, from 2009 to 2014, he served as Vice-Chair of the IEEE PES CAMS Task Force on Open Source Software.

He is an advocate and evangelist for free/libre and open-source software, member of the Open Source Modelica Consortium (OSCM) and Associate Member of the Free Software Foundation.

His research interests are in the area of synchrophasor technology applications; and cyber-physical power system modeling, simulation, stability and control.