KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Optimal distribution system reconfiguration: emergent concepts and applications

Prof. Gianfranco Chicco
Politecnico di Torino, Italy

Abstract

Optimal distribution system reconfiguration is one of the classical problems of electrical energy distribution, with objectives referring for instance to loss minimisation, load balancing, and placement of voltage and reactive power support devices.
In the classical formulation, the analyses are carried out at given network load levels. In recent years, various factors emerged to speed up the electricity infrastructure modernisation process and the revisiting of the calculation procedures. These factors include electrical component aging, availability of innovative technology, increasing environmental pressure, extensive rulemaking after the energy business restructuring, and enhanced customer choice. The new perspectives for distribution system analysis concern the time-dependent assessment of the configurations occurring in a specified period of observation, the consideration of the uncertainty introduced by the distributed energy resources, the incorporation of additional data gathered from automated metering throughout the network, and the introduction of reliability-based objectives in the optimisation problem formulation.
The emergent trend is to formulate and solve optimization problems with a multi-objective approach, provided that individual objectives conflicting with each other can be found. The multi-objective focus enables the determination of a number of compromise solutions to assist the decision maker in choosing the preferred network configuration. The speech summarises the evolution of concepts and optimisation problem formulations referring to optimal distribution system reconfiguration.

Biography of the Keynote Speaker

Gianfranco Chicco graduated in Electrotechnics Engineering (honors) in 1987 at Politecnico di Torino (PdT), Italy, and obtained the Ph.D. in Electrotechnics Engineering in 1992. His academic career has been developed in the Electric Energy Systems research group at PdT, as Assistant Professor (1995-2002), Associate Professor (2002-2010), and Professor (since 2011). He is the President of the University Academic Planning Council (UACP) in Electrical Engineering at PdT (since 2007). In April-May 1999 he was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Urbana, IL. In 2001-2010 he visited Politehnica University of Bucharest, Valahia University of Targoviste, and Technical University of Iasi (Romania) under the Erasmus/Socrates Staff Exchange Programme.
He has been the scientific responsible and coordinator of projects on energy resource deployment and sustainability, as the National project PRIN 2004094435_007 "Experimental tests and analysis of the energy production of photovoltaic and wind systems" (PdT research unit, 2004-2006), the project "Territorial sustainability of distributed energy generation and interactions with electroenergetic systems" (funded by the Piemonte Region, 2006-2010), and the scientific co-responsible of the project "Technical, economic and environmental assessment of the scenarios for the diffusion of the distributed generation in the regional territory" (funded by the Fondazione CRT, 2005-2007). He participated in the EU FP6 Project DIGENAS (Distributed Generation in the Associated States - Research Priorities and Challenges on the Open Electricity Market.
He has been the Conference Chairman and Editor of the Proceedings of the Sixth World Energy System Conference (WESC), Torino, Italy, 10-12 July 2006, and a Conference co-Chairman of the next two editions of WESC in Iaşi, Romania (2008), and Targoviste, Romania (2010). He has been a Technical Committee Member and Conference Session Chairman in many international Conferences.
Since 2011 he is an Associate Editor of the Energy journal (ISSN 0360-0442). He has been the co-Guest Editor of two Special Issues for the journals Energy and Electric Power Systems Research. He is a peer-Reviewer of various international journals published by IEEE, IET, and Elsevier.
His International scientific production includes one book, three book chapters, over 40 journal publications, and over 120 publications in conference proceedings.
He is a Senior Member of the IEEE Power and Energy Society, a Member of the Italian Federation of Electrotechnics, Electronics, Automation, Informatics and Telecommunications (AEIT), and a registered professional Engineer in the Province of Torino, Italy.