Abstract
In the last two decades, there has been a global trend away from conventional energy supply
based on fossil fuels and nuclear energy, towards a more sustainable energy supply based on
renewable energies (RE). The governments of an increasing number of countries worldwide
are switching to RE and are in various stages of transition. This has meant that the technical
and economic principles relating to the current power supply process structure need to be
reconsidered. On the technical side, the supply with volatile RE, e.g. wind and solar power,
which is predominantly supplied from decentralised energy sources, can have a significant
influence on grid stability. On the economic side, the role of a considerable number of grid
users is changing from passive consumers to producers, also known as ‘prosumers’.
Conventional power supply principles, which consider mainly classical power suppliers, can
lead to a gap in the implementation of non-discriminatory market conditions for all grid users.
As a novel concept for future-oriented power supply systems, the Clustering Power System
Approach (CPSA) has been developed at the Laboratory of Electrical Energy Supply at the
South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences, Branch Soest under the leadership of Prof.
Dr.-Ing. Egon Ortjohann. The CPSA enables the technical control of power systems and takes
into account the economic processes. With the CPSA, the power system is divided into cluster
areas, which transfers the interconnected grid structure of the transmission system operator
(TSO) level to the distribution system operator (DSO) level, in order to enable an equitable
power supply process in each grid or voltage level. This dissertation therefore makes a specific
contribution to knowledge and is essentially divided into three main parts.
The first part of the dissertation contains a state-of-the art analysis of different smart grid
concept and compares these concepts with the CPSA. The CPSA in turn builds also the basis
for the further investigations provided in this dissertation.
The second part of the dissertation examines whether the power supply processes and structure
of the TSO level can be broken down to the DSO level. These principles need to be considered
for cluster control operation within the CPSA, which allows independent automation and
operation of each cluster. The current power supply structure and its processes are studied
based on the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSOE) network codes and adapted to a node-orientated approach.
The third part of the dissertation is related to the state estimation, which is a key function for
dynamic power system operation and control. In order to be operated within the CPSA, the socalled Grid Node-Oriented State Estimation (GNO-SE) is introduced to validate that the grid
node-oriented approach is suitable for power system operation and control based on the CPSA.
This research demonstrates that the necessary flexibility, adaptability and efficiency for the
dynamic power system operation and control of the power grid can be provided at DSO level.