Fuzzy logic and its application to power systems

R W Dunn'. K W Bellt and A R Daniels*

t Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, UMIST

$ Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Bath

Introduction

Electrical power systems are large, complex extended electro-mechanical dynamic systems. There are
many potential operating points to match generation to demand, many causes of disturbance withm the
system, many control inputs, many security factors and economic considerations to be taken into account
when operating such a diverse system.

Uncertainty exists within the operation due to a large number of causes. Just a few examples of the main
uncertainties are:

Imprecisely known system variable measurements, involving collected over the

SCADA system.

Inaccuracy in the values of system parameters used in the modelling of the system
plant.

Approximations and simplifying assumptions made withm the model structures used
for system planning and operation.

Inaccuracies in load forecasting.

Unpredictable events, such as equipment failure and adverse weather condtions.

Incomplete information about the state of the power system.

Variability in the application of control to the system by human operators.

Privatisation of electricity supply industries around the world, leading to the break-up of monolithc
companies has added further complexity. It is now necessary for the power producers, transmission
network controllers and distribution companies to co-operate w i h a competitive framework to aclueve
the task of supplying power cheaply, securely and within the correct statutory standards. The motivations
of the separate companies adds an extra dimension of uncertainty to the whole power system operation
and planning problem.

Algorithm that are developed to provide solutions to specific power system operational and planning
issues. However, currently the majority of these are based on highly optimised numerical algorithm that
are dependent on the validity of the data that is fed to them. The reality of the situation is that the errors in
t h s data can have a severe effect on the results of such numerically based algorithms.

A better approach is to employ algorithms that are not as sensitive to indvidual data items. That is,
algorithm that can survive imprecision in the data and ambiguity in the meaning of rules that are used to
carry out power system operation. Fuzzy logic provides one such approach [1,2,3].

Fuzzy Logic

Traditional logic uses variables that have precise values, called 'crisp' values. Fuzzy logic, on the other
hand, attempts to model the impreciseness of human reasoning by representing uncertainty for the
variables that are used by assignment of a 'set' of values to the variable. Each value has a 'degree of
membership' of the set wluch represents the probability of the variable having that value [l]. A
'membership function' identifies the degree of membership over the range of possible values, known as

4/1
the 'universe of discourse'. This function can be defmed to represent an adjective, known as a 'linguistic
value' or 'fuzzy set', whch describes the set of values. It is th~sability to handed common linguistic
terminology that allows fuzzy logic to model qualitative reasoning and to be used in knowledge
representation.

The idea of fuzzy sets is an extension of conventional set theory formalised by L.A. Zadeh in 1965 [3] in
order to deal with uncertainty concerning a statement's exact meaning. While a 'crisp' variable either is, or
is not, a member of a particular set, a 'fuzzy' variable has a 'degree of membership' or 'degree of truth'
which for the range of the variable is described by a 'membership function'. A membership function is
generally denoted by p(x) where x is the variable whose degree of membership is being described. A
fuzzy variable's value may be described not by a number but by an adjective. In this way, a fuzzy variable
is also known as a 'linguistic variable' and its value as a 'hguistic value' [ 11. It is h s property that gives
fuzzy logic its power to model human qualitative reasoning. A crisp variable can also have a membershp
function. In this case, there would only be one value for which the degree of membershp of the set, or the
degree of truth, would be non-zero. Fuzzy systems can include crisp functions.

Fuzzy Control

Fuzzy control is an area for which there is a wealth of published work and real applications. It is based on
using fuzzy sets to model control decisions which are semantically uncertain. In a manner similar to that
of conventional rule-based expert systems, the fuzzy sets are combined in sets of rules to represent the
knowledge applicable in a decision malung process. Such sets of rules are known as fuzzy expert systems.

According to Kickert and Mamdani [4], "the basic idea...was to incorporate the 'experience' of a human
process operator in the design of a controller. From a set of linguistic rules whch describe the operator's
control strategy, a control algorithm is constructed where the words are defmed as fuzzy sets. The main
advantages of this approach seem to be the possibility of implementing 'rule of thumb' experience,
intuition and heuristics, and the fact that it does not need an [exact] model of the process."

Fuzzy expert systems' advantages over conventional production-rule based expert systems have been
characterised as including [5,6]:

1. Fuzzy sets neatly symbolise natural language terms used by experts.

2. Since knowledge captured in 'IF...THFN statements is often not naturally true or false, fuzzy
sets afford representation of the knowledge in a smaller number of rules.
3. Fuzzy rules can be tuned on- or off-he.
4. A smooth mapping can be obtained between input and output data.

A fuzzy expert system executes a series of rules or conditional statements similar in form to:

IF x is low AND y is high THEN z is medium

Since the inputs to fuzzy control systems are crisp and crisp control signals are required, fuzzy expert
systems used in control work in four steps as shown in the above figure:

1. Fuzzifcation. From knowledge of the crisp value of the variable being fuzzified and the
membership function of the linguistic value, the degree of truth of the proposition is found.
2. Inference. The truth value for each rule's premise is computed and related to the conclusion part
of the rule.
3. Composition. All the fuzzy subsets (membership functions) assigned to each output variable are
combined to form a single subset or membership function for each output variable.
4. Defuzzifcation. This converts a fuzzy set to a crisp value.

-
Case study Modelling of heuristics in dispatch for security enhancement

Control of voltage is one of the primary requirements of the management of a large electrical power
utility. Thls is generally viewed as the need to maintain the voltage magnitudes at all the nodes in the
system within pre-determined limits, although voltage stability is now receiving more attention. In
addition, limitations on the amount of power that can be transmitted by a line or transfonner are set such

412
that the temperatures of plant components do not increase above acceptable levels. The controls that are
used to keep the required voltage levels include generator and Static VAr Compensator (SVC) voltage
reference points, Mechanically Switched Capacitors (MSC) and transformer tap ratios. Those used to
control power flows are MW generation and quadrature booster settings.

The work described as part of this colloquium presentation combines the balancing of different criteria
lnherent in operators' judgments with the more traditional numerical algorithms. Use is made of fuzzy
expert systems to model qualitative judgments normally made by the operators in the light of information
supplied by numerical computer based tools. The main numerical tool is sensitivity analysis used to derive
the necessary movements in controller settings. When combined with fuzzy expert systems, this creates a
fast and flexible fuzzy logic controller.

A fuzzy expert system for dispatch

The expert system used for reactive and active dispatch consists of two subsystems, one for each of the
reactive and active parts of the problem. These subsystems are applied alternately to the power system
scenario that is under consideration, as shown in figure 1.

(=I
voltage limits MW limits stop

A
Do reactive Do load flow
dispatch for actions

for actions dispatch

/
tge limits\ ./ MW limits \ ""

figure I

As well as using approximate reasoning to reach a good compromise decision, the fuzzy expert system
allows easier adjustment of priorities than the equivalent numerical optimistation routines. The rule bases
for each sybsystem are:

Reactive dispatch

1 IF voltage is low AND sensitivity IS positive AND control margin IS enough to raise AND cost
IS low THEN setting IS A V a x .

2 IF voltage is high AND sensitivity IS positive AND control margin IS enough to lower AND
cost IS low THEN setting IS AU"".

3 IF voltage is low AND sensitivity IS negative AND control margin IS enough to lower AND
cost IS low THEN setting IS AU"".

413
4 IF voltage is high AND sensitivity IS negative AND control margin IS enough to raise AND cost
IS low THEN setting IS AU"".

Active dispatch

1 IF loading IS very hlgh AND sensitivity IS positive AND control margin IS enough to lower
AND cost IS low THEN setting is AU"'".

2 IF loading IS very high AND sensitivity IS negative AND control margin IS enough to raise
AND cost IS low THEN setting is AU""".

These rules are used as part of an overall scheme that also limits the number of controller actions when
meeting any given reactive and active dispatch requirement. This represents a new approach to the
scheduling of controls for the enhancement of power system security using fuzzy logic to model operators'
decisions. Previous work by the authors [7,8] has shown that the new approach outperforms a traditional
linear programming method in terms of execution speed, improvement in security, convergence,
maintenance of control margin, number of controls used and cost.

Conclusions

The brief description of the work in this paper and the colloquium presentation have provided an insight
to the application of fuzzy logic, in the form of a fuzzy controller, to a real power system operations
problem. It has been seen how fuzzy logic can deal with the complex problems posed by the. reactive and
active dispatch problem taking into account security and cost.

Future work can exploit the opportunity that the outlined method provides to base dispatch on any
criterion for which some measure can be made. An example of this would be an index of proximity of
voltage collapse. This could be used in the rules, or in the place of the sensitivity index that is currently
used when malung the judgement as to whether a new dispatch is an improvement. This could then be
used as a voltage instability prevention system.

Acknowledgements

The author gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the National Grid Company plc and the
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, UK, to this work.

References

1 ZADEH, L.A.: 'Outline of a new approach to the analysis of complex systems and decision
processes', IEEE Systems, Man and Cybemetics, Vol. SMC-3, No. 1, pp. 2840,1973.
2 FU, L.: 'Neural networks in computer intelligence', McGraw-Hill, 1994.
3 ZADEH, L.A.: 'Fuzzy sets', Information and Control, Vol. 8, pp. 338-353, 1965.
4 KICKERT, W.J.M., and MAMDANI, E.H.: 'Analysis of a fuzzy logic controller', Fuzzy Sets and
Systems, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 29-44, 1978.
5 BERENJI, H.R.: 'The unique strength of fuzzy logic control', IEEE Expert, pp. 9, August 1994.
6 VADIEE, N., and JAMSHIDI, M.: 'The promising future of fuzzy logic', lEEE Expert, pp, 36-
38, August 1994.
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security-constrained reactive Qspatch', Proceedmgs of Stockholm Power Tech., Stockholm, June
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8 BELL, K.R.W., DANIELS, A.R., and DUNN, R.W.: 'A fuzzy expert system for overload
alleviation', Proceedings of Power Systems Computational Conference, Dresden, pp. 1177-1183,
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0 1997 The Institution of Electrical Engineers.
Printed and published by the IEE, Savoy Place, London WC2R OBL, UK.