88 ieee power & energy magazine september/october 2014

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Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2014.2329171

Date of publication: 18 August 2014

One bOOk is reviewed in this issue, which looks at the energy sus-tainability in the Azores. the mission of the book, according to the reviewers, “is to make the electric energy systems of two islands—Flores and são Miguel in Azores archipelago, Portugal—as green as possible without increasing the long-term service cost.”

Engineering IT-Enabled Sustainable Electricity Services: The Tale of Two Low-Cost Green Azores IslandsMarija Ilic, Le Xie, and Qixing Liu, editorsAs the primary energy source, coal is widely used for power generation, which causes serious concerns related to the environment and sustainability. thus, re-newable energy sources have been devel-oped significantly over the past decade. Unfortunately, renewable energy tends to be variable and uncertain because of the prime movers (i.e., wind and solar) and the dependence on natural and me-teorological conditions. the motivation of the book, Engineering IT-Enabled Sustainable Electricity Services: The Tale of Two Low-Cost Green Azores Is-lands, published by springer in 2013, is to make the electric energy systems of two islands—Flores and são Miguel in the Azores archipelago, Portugal—as green as possible without increasing the long-term service cost. based on the

study of the electrical network, energy resources, and demand characteristics of the Azores islands, especially Flores and são Miguel, a systematic deployment of an it-enabled method and automation is proposed to transform their current elec-tric energy systems into sustainable, low-cost systems. there are at least six major strengths in this book.

✔✔ real-world data are used in the simulation and study, which is an excellent resource for those who are interested in gaining more thorough research in developing a stronger, clean-er, and more i n t e l l i g e n t electric energy infrastructure. based on the book, Flores is one of the small-est islands of the Azores ar-chipelago, with a population of about 4,000 in-habitants. the island is pow-ered by a fleet of diesel gen-erators, a reservoir hydro plant, and synchronous wind turbine-generators. são Miguel island is the capital and the largest island with 140,000 inhabitants, pow-ered by geothermal, hydropower, and heavy fuel oil. As for the wind data in the Azores archipel-ago, the missing data is corrected and the wind turbine hub height is

derived based on the raw meteo-rological wind speed data. then, the wind turbine manufacturer’s data sheets are used to convert wind speed to wind power.

✔✔ Look-ahead dispatch for the effi-cient use of available resources is proposed for wind and load power prediction for the islands of Flores and são Miguel. due to the pres-ence of major new uncertainties in power systems (e.g., high penetra-tion of variable generation and re-sponsive loads), the operation and

planning of electric power systems have become more chal-lenging than in the past. in this book, look-ahead generation dis-patch is subject to ramp constraints with wind power and load fore-casts. the proposed model can obtain the dispatch of less expen-sive and less polluting generation. to design the right demand re-sponse program for the islands, the ability of

different types of loads to partici-pate in adaptive load management is assessed. For instance, since there are many automobiles in Flores, electric vehicles can be used to adjust their energy needs to sup-port high penetrations of wind and solar power.

✔✔ the recommendations for mini-mizing power delivery losses

sustainable electricitya look at the green Azores islands

september/october 2014 ieee power & energy magazine 89

are pointed out for the Azores archipelago, which is important to obtain economic and environ-mental sustainability. strategi-cally locating the new wind power plants and optimally utilizing them and other generators can dra-matically reduce the distribution losses. since voltage optimization is also critical to reducing deliv-ery losses, the use of extended ac optimal power flow (ac XOPF) is suggested to compute the most effective schedules as conditions may change during operations, to assess the potential value of new plant candidates, and to rein-force power delivery systems to enable the efficient use of newly added resources.

✔✔ to balance the wind power deviations in a longer time range (especially on a minute-by-minute basis) and to obtain acceptable mid- and long-term frequency, a quasi-static control method for cost-effective intra-dispatch real power balancing is proposed for the two islands. based on the book, the gover-nor control or energy storage such as flywheels can be used to reduce small, fast fluctua-tions. Also, the rotor excitation in conventional power plants, the doubly fed induction genera-tor, and flexible ac transmission systems (FACts)-based voltage control in wind power plants can be used as fast voltage control to stabilize the very fast wind power fluctuations. Moreover, structure-based dynamics with a coupled model of real power and voltage is introduced for assessing small signal stability when there is a high penetration of renewable energy resources in the Azores archipelago.

✔✔ the proof-of-concept implemen-tation of differentiated reliability of service by remote distribution system reconfiguration is proposed to minimize cost and reserve mar-gin. the optimal placements of

normally closed switches and nor-mally opened switches are carried out to reconfigure the distribution systems to minimize the switches combined with the infrastructure cost paid to customers by utility.

Considering increasingly unpre-dictable renewable energy sources, it is very important to analyze tran-sient stability problems in networks with high wind penetration. in the book, the FACts devices and

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flywheels are proposed to help improve stability and reliability.

✔✔ A stochastic dynamic optimization model is proposed to analyze the optimal expansion decisions considering the uncertainty of wind power generation and future loads. in the book, the impact from the variability of wind power and load on optimal, long-term expansion decisions is investigated on são Miguel island. it is shown that wind power is a cost-efficient expansion alternative, but some dispatchable generation is also needed to compensate for the uncertainty in wind power.

in addition to the merits discussed above, this book pro-vides a comprehensive suite of operational support tools for the Flores and são Miguel islands, which can be ap-plicable to other interconnected power grids such as those found in the United states, europe, and China. it also has an easy-to-follow monograph, which provides a holistic view of the multiscale challenges of future power and energy sys-tems. Moreover, it provides open-access simulation data for the Azores archipelago, which can serve as a test case for the community at large for quantifying the benefits of in-novative technologies in future systems. Finally, the book is easy to understand, and readers with undergraduate educa-tion in electrical engineering should be able to comprehend and follow.

—Fangxing Li and Yao Xu

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