May 17, 2013, Webb 1100

We consider the problem of optimal reactive power compensation for the minimization of power distribution losses in a smart microgrid. We first propose an approximate model for the power distribution network, which allows us to cast the problem into the class of convex quadratic, linearly constrained, optimization problems. We then consider the specific problem of commanding the microgenerators connected to the microgrid, in order to achieve the optimal injection of reactive power. For this task, we design a randomized, gossip-like optimization algorithm. We show how a distributed approach is possible, where microgenerators need to have only a partial knowledge of the problem parameters and of the state, and can perform only local measurements. Moreover this method yields to a feedback control based strategy for the reactive power compensation.

Sandro Zampieri received the Laurea degree in Electrical Engineering and  the Ph.D. degree in System Engineering from the University of Padova, Italy, in 1988 and 1993, respectively. Since 2002 he is Full Professor in Automatic Control at the Department of Information Engineering of the  University of Padova.
In 1991-92, 1993 and 1996 he was Visiting Scholar at Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, MIT, Cambridge. He has held visiting positions also at the Department of Mathematics of the University of Groningen and at the Department of
Mechanical Engineering of the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Prof. Zampieri has published more than 100 journal and conference papers. He has delivered several invited seminars and he was member of the Technical Program Committee for several international conferences. He was general chair of the 1st IFAC Workshop on Estimation and Control of Networked Systems 2009, program chair of the 3rd IFAC Workshop on Estimation and Control of Networked Systems 2012 and publication chair of the IFAC World Congress 2011. He served as an Associate Editor of the  Siam Journal on Control and Optimization on 2002-2004 and as the chair of the IFAC technical committee "Networked systems" on 2005-2008. Since 2012 he is serving as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions of Automatic Control. His research interests include automatic control and dynamical systems theory, and in particular distributed control and estimation and networked control and control under communication constraints.