Search Results (6)

Nuclear fusion is understood as an energy reaction that does not emit greenhouse gases, and it has been considered as a long-term source of low-carbon electricity that is favourable to curtail rapid climate change. Fusion offers a pathway to resolve energy security and the unequal distribution of energy resources since seawater is its ultimate fuel source and a few grams of fuel can generate mega kilowatts of power. The development and testing of new materials and technologies are unceasing to achieve the net fusion energy through national and international collaboration as well as private partnerships. The ever-growing number of research works report various designs and magnet-based fusion devices, such as stellarators, lasers, and tokamaks. This article provides an overview on the utilization of nuclear energy as a clean energy source, as well as the strategies and progress towards establishing successful commercial fusion energy to the grid and transition to a reliable clean energy source. The overview focuses on the fusion nuclear development in five major countries, UK, US, China, Japan, and Russia. Identified technical and financial challenges are also described at the end of this article. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) has been an international reference program for fusion energy development and most developed countries with nuclear development capacity are aiming to complete their in-house fusion energy facilities in parallel to ITER. Many fusion programs are finishing the conceptual design and shifting into the phase of engineering design for the planned DEMO fusion facilities. The significant challenges were identified from the perspective of device efficiency and robustness, sustainable funding, and facility maintenance and safety, which must be addressed diligently to realize fusion energy as alternative clean energy that mitigates climate change and supports the goals of energy security. Full article

Power sources supported by lithium-ion battery (LIB) technology has been considered to be the most suitable for public and military use. Battery quality is always a critical issue since electric engines and portable devices use power-consuming algorithms for security. For the practical use of LIBs in public applications, low heat generation, and fast charging are essential requirements, but those features are still unsatisfactory so far. In particular, the slow Li⁺ intercalation kinetics, lithium plating, and self-heat generation of conventional graphite-anode LIBs under fast-charging conditions are impediments to the use of these batteries by the public demands. The use of silicon-based anodes, which are associated with fast reaction kinetics and rapid Li⁺ diffusion, has great potential to render LIBs suitable for public use in the near future. In this perspective, the challenges in and future directions for developing silicon-based anode materials for realizing LIBs with fast-charging capability are highlighted. Full article

The rapid growth of the distributed generators (DGs) integration into the distribution systems (DSs) creates new technical issues; conventional relay settings need to be updated depending on the network topology and operational mode as fault protection a major challenge. This emphasizes the need for new fault protection methods to ensure secure protection and prevent undesirable tripping. Total harmonic distortion (THD) is an important indicator for assessing the quality of the grid. Here, a new protection system based on the THD of the grid voltages is proposed to address fault events in the electrical distribution network. The proposed protection system combines the THD with the estimates of the amplitude voltages and the zero-sequence component for defining an algorithm based on a finite state machine (FSM) for the detection, identification, and isolation of faults in the grid. The algorithm employs communication lines between all the protective devices (PDs) of the system to transmit tripping signals, allowing PDs to be coordinated. A second order generalized integrator (SOGI) and multiple SOGI (MSOGI) are used to obtain the THDs, estimated amplitude voltages, and zero-sequence component, which allows for fast detection with a low computational burden. The protection algorithm performance is evaluated through simulations in MATLAB/Simulink and a comparative study is developed between the proposed protection method and a differential relay (DR) protection system. The proposed method shows its capability to detect and isolate faults during different fault types with different fault resistances in different locations in the proposed network. In all the tested scenarios, the detection time of the faults has been between 7–10 ms. Moreover, this method gave the best solution as it has a higher accuracy and faster response than the conventional DR protection system. Full article

Rapid progress of computing and info-communication technologies (ICT) has changed the ecosystem of power production and delivery. Today, an energy network is a complex set of interrelated devices and information systems covering all areas of electric power operations and applying ICT based on open standards, such as IEC 60870, IEC 61850, and IEC 61970. According to IEC 62351, the energy networks are faced with high cybersecurity risks caused by open communications, security requirements rarely considered in the energy facilities, partial and difficult upgrades, and incompatibility of secure tools with industrial solutions. This situation results in new security challenges, e.g., denial of service attacks on the connected controllers, dispatching centers, process control systems, and terminals. IEC 62351 describes possible ways to comprehensive security in the energy networks. Most of them used in traditional networks (e.g., firewalls, intrusion detection systems) can be adapted to the energy networks. Honeypot systems as a protection measure help us to mitigate the attacks and maintain necessary security in the networks. Due to the large scale of an energy network and heterogeneity of its components, a new design, deployment, and management strategy for the honeypot systems are required. The paper suggests a new method for organizing a virtual network infrastructure of a hybrid honeypot system and a dynamic management method that adapts the network topology to the attacker’s actions according to the development graph of potential attacks. This technique allows us to dynamically build virtual networks of arbitrary scale. Because of the similarity of the virtual network to the virtualized origin and providing the level of interactivity of its nodes corresponding to real devices, this technique deploys an energy network indistinguishable from the real one for the attackers. A prototype of our honeypot system has been implemented, and experiments on it have demonstrated the more efficient use of the computing resources, the faster reaction to the attacker’s actions, and the deployment of different sizes of virtual networks for the given limits of the computing resources. Full article

The research objective of this paper is to propose a new type of ERSD to solve the problem of the uncontrollable velocity of the claw in the current RSD. Firstly, the working characteristics of the RSD in ASIST are analyzed, and the design scheme of the transmission system of the ERSD is provided. The control system is designed by combining the vector control algorithm with the fuzzy adaptive PID control algorithm. On this basis, the trajectory planning of claw capture velocity is completed. Finally, the dynamics model of the transmission system of the ERSD is built by power bond graph theory, and the system simulation is carried out. The results show that the maximum capture time, velocity, and force were reduced by 47%, 53%, and 80%. In addition, when the ERSD is towing the helicopter, the mechanical claw can still provide good velocity tracking performance under a maximum interference load of 34,000 N. Full article

Self-reconfiguration in electrical power grids is a significant tool for their planning and operation during both normal and abnormal conditions. The increasing in employment of Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs), as well as the rapid growth of the new communication technologies have increased the application of Feeder Automation (FA) in Distribution Networks (DNs). In a Smart Grid (SG), automation equipment, such as a Smart Breaker (SB), is used. Using either a wired or a wireless network or even a combination of both, communication between the Control Center (CC) and SBs can be made. Nowadays, wireless technology is widely used in the communication of DNs. This may cause several security vulnerabilities in the power system, such as remote attacks, with the goal of cutting off the electrical power provided to significant consumers. Therefore, to preserve the cybersecurity of the system, there is a need for a secure scheme. The available literature investments proposed a heavyweight level in security schemes, while the overhead was not considered. To overcome this drawback, this paper presents an efficient lightweight authentication mechanism with the necessary steps to ensure real-time automatic reconfiguration during a fault. As a first stage, authentication will be made between CC and SB, SB then sends the information about its status. To ensure the integrity of the authentication exchange, a hash function is used, while the symmetric algorithm is used to ensure privacy. The applicability of the suggested scheme has been proved by conducting security performance and analysis. The proposed scheme will be injected on ABB medium voltage breaker with the REF 542plus controller. Therefore, the probable benefit of the suggested scheme is the contribution to provide more flexibility for electrical utilities in terms of reducing the overall computational overhead and withstanding to various types of attacks, while also opening new prospects in FA of SGs. Full article