Methods for Spatiotemporal Power Profile from Marine Hydro-kinetic Energy and Wind Energy for a Proposed U.S.-Caribbean-South America Super Grid under Hurricanes.

Doctoral Candidate Name: Rodney Itiki
Program: Electrical and Computer Engineering
Defense Date and Time: July 27, 2023 – 10:30 AM
Defense Location: https://charlotte-edu.zoom.us/j/93990098609?pwd=c0VxS3lkanBFL3l5UjEyZ1UxL2NTdz09 ; Meeting ID: 939 9009 8609; Passcode: 516882
Committee chair’s Name: Dr. Madhav Manjrekar
Committee Members: Dr. Madhav Manjrekar, Dr. Sukumar Kamalasadan, Dr. Valentina Cecchi, Dr. Thomas Nicholas II
Abstract:

Global warming and climate change keep causing a catastrophic impact on the natural, social, economic, and political environment in many parts of the world. The urgency for the transition to a low-carbon economy through CO2 emissions reduction calls for innovative methods to harvest renewable energy sources to displace unsustainable fossil fuel power in North America. This work presents proposed methods for marine hydrokinetic and solar renewable power generation. On another front, since addressing the causes of global warming and climate change is not timely enough, this author proposes technologies to minimize their effects, which manifest through extreme weather events. Since renewables harvesting generates variable power profiles during extreme weather events, this work investigates high voltage interconnectors to smooth the total power variability of wind power farms far distant between themselves under hurricane events. Another effect of climate change is the increasing frequency of failures on overhead transmission lines due to extreme weather events. The author thus proposes a wide-area controller with phasor measurement and battery actuator to minimize the post-fault transients. In summary, the proposed methods and high voltage enforcements address the causes and effects of climate change and global warming on the existing and future power grids. Furthermore, the proposed methods and enforcements lay the foundations for future studies on large-scale renewable multi-source super grids, with a consequential impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving power resilience in North America.