At TenneT, you will have the opportunity to carry out your graduation research in an environment where you can make a real impact. As a student intern in System Operations & Market Development team, you will work on relevant and current challenges related to AC Optimal Power Flow (OPF) calculations.
OPF calculations play an important role in facilitating efficient transport of electric power. In the simplest definition, OPF involves determining operating setpoints for controllable assets in the grid such as generators, shunts and transformers that lead to minimal operational costs while satisfying demand and operational constraints. As the electricity grid is predominantly based on Alternating Current (AC), the underlying physics of the grid is non-linear making the AC-OPF problem non-linear and possibly non-convex. Hence, solving the AC-OPF problem is non-trivial, computationally expensive and prone to divergence. Furthermore, when security constraints are imposed over time, solving the AC-OPF problem can become prohibitively slow. This stimulates the use of approximate methods that compromise on accuracy for speed.
The project involves developing a fast and robust calculation framework for solving security constrained AC-OPF problems for the Dutch transmission grid along two tracks – mathematical optimization and machine learning.
