Against the backdrop of nonstop technological advancements, smart energy has become a key policy for governments and enterprises around the globe. However, despite years of development, there is still room for improvement in the three major areas of innovative energy solutions: generation, storage, and conservation. A team led by Cheng-Chien Kuo, chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (Taiwan Tech), has been using AI and various information technology (IT) tools to help government agencies, factories, enterprises, households and other users track their electricity information more accurately and allow for the formulation of strategies that can further optimize energy use.
Kuo's team mainly focuses on solving energy problems through IT, with their research areas spanning the fields of grid system structural robustness, energy monitoring and management systems, power equipment fault detection, and AI technology integration. The team has already proposed a series of solutions targeting energy generation, storage, and conservation. In the field of energy generation, the team has developed a smart solar energy diagnosis technology that uses AI and digitization to quickly detect the location of failures of photovoltaic (PV) modules or converters within large solar power plants. The technology is poised to facilitate rapid maintenance and enhance the availability of PV modules to contribute to higher power generation efficiency.
For energy storage, the team has developed a highly-stable energy management system (EMS) with closed-loop automatic frequency control (AFC) that can achieve over 99% system uptime. Kuo points out that all the control technology and software backend of the solution were developed independently by the team and do not rely on any commercially available SCADA/HMI platforms. This means that their solution is not bound to specific hardware setups and can flexibly adapt to different energy storage systems by adjusting its control logic and algorithms automatically to ensure performance and uptime. The technology solves the lack of integration in existing energy storage systems in Taiwan and improves the nation's technological autonomy and overall capability.
As for energy conservation, the team has also developed an always-on vibration monitoring system that can continuously and automatically monitor equipment vibration during operation to help managers keep track of equipment status. By enabling early anomaly detection and systematic maintenance planning, this technology can effectively prevent unplanned downtime from happening and thereby meet the high uptime requirements of manufacturers or technology providers. Besides the said vibration monitoring system, the team has also developed an always-on infrared thermographic system that uses continuous thermal imaging to monitor the operating temperature of power equipment and can automatically diagnose the possible time or location of equipment faults before they happen using data like temperature difference, temperature rise and thermodynamic temperature to help effectively reduce power outage events.
Verified by Taipower to reach over 99% uptime
Currently, Kuo's team has already implemented several successful industry-academia collaboration projects using their technology or solutions. Kuo points out that the power grid technologies developed by his team such as the power storage application of frequency regulation, solar PV output smoothing, IEC61850 protocol, and system impact analysis can help power plants in Taiwan establish energy storage systems and autonomous control technologies. These technologies have been verified by Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) and put into operation. Currently, the technologies have been transferred and systems using these solutions have showed an average uptime of over 99%, which is higher than Taipower's 95% standard.
The team also has a solar energy monitoring system that optimizes maintenance routines using a built-in anomaly detection algorithm for serial power generators. This system has been adopted by solar power plants in Taiwan and can reduce the scope of troubleshooting required in the event of failures and even detect normally undetectable power loss in inverter equipment.
Maintenance and inspection is yet another area that the team has made progress in. At present, the mainstream practice for high-voltage equipment inspection in Taiwanese factories is regular inspection. However, unanticipated failures may still occur in the period between inspections, resulting in loss of power generation or factory production. In rare severe cases, this may even lead to fires, which could cause even more damage and potentially endanger personnel. In order to raise the overall safety and inspection reliability of large power stations or high-voltage equipment in factories, the team uses their always-on infrared thermographic system coupled with smart temperature detection to issue warnings when a fault is detected. The system is always activated, can accurately and quickly detect failures, and will initiate the necessary safety protection measures when needed, thereby improving the efficiency of inspections and ensuring the safety of personnel.
Kuo's team has also established a joint collaboration platform with well-known domestic electronics and energy companies. He says that Taiwan Tech's Global Research and Industry Alliance (TAItech GLORIA) has played a key role in facilitating industry-academia R&D collaboration in these projects. In 2021, TAItech GLORIA formed an inter-university alliance with seven other universities including National Taiwan University, National Taiwan Normal University, and Chang Gung University with assistance from the Ministry of Science and Technology's Global Research & Industry Alliance (GLORIA), which seeks to integrate R&D and marketing resources across universities, promote domestic and international industry-academia cooperation, and provide guidance on the commercialization of research results to help foster the development of innovation and cultivation in educational institutions. In the future, TAItech GLORIA will continue to assist Kuo's team with their R&D in the field of power and energy, using IT tools to create smarter EMSs.
The Taiwan Tech team led by Cheng-Chien Kuo is making energy management smarter through AI and IT tools.
Photo: DIGITIMES
