The course provides an overview of planning and operating power systems. In particular, the course covers the planning process and the network procedure for effective grid operation, both in healthy working conditions and after a contingency. The goal is to provide a clear understanding of procedures devoted to fostering an efficient design, operation, and protection of power networks and, simultaneously, the security and quality of service. In addition, an overview of the power networks' expected evolution through the deployment of ICT infrastructures, loads and distributed generations flexibility, sector coupling, electric vehicles etc.… will be explored.

The course aims to develop students' capabilities in understanding the power grid planning and operation main issues, discussing technical and scientific topics on power grid-related problems, reading and understanding specialistic documents related to grid planning and operation, and roughly identifying issues and solutions. Furthermore, the students will be able to identify necessary data and elaborate them to obtain results using the software PowerWorld and to discuss critically results, providing directions to the solution and obtaining sensitivities on the parameters. Assessment of the proposed solutions will also be a part of the knowledge provided by the course.

The contents of the course will be delivered through lectures and tutorials. Moreover, some seminars delivered by industry experts will be organized to present real-life applications of power systems planning and operations. At the end of the course, a technical visit will be arranged to a real primary substation and to a smart grid lab located in Milan.

The exam consists of an oral test on the contents covered during lectures, tutorials, and seminars.

  • Power Generation, Operation, and Control, 3rd Edition. Allen J. Wood, Bruce F. Wollenberg, Gerald B. Sheblé, Wiley 2013 (3rd edition)
  • H.L. Willis, Power Distribution Planning Reference Book, 2nd ed. New York: Marcel Dekker, 2004.
  • R. E. Brown, Electric Power Distribution Reliability, 2nd ed. New York: CRC Press, 2009.
  • T. Gönen, Electric Power Distribution Engineering, 3rd ed. New York: CRC Press, 2014.
  • J. D. Glover, T. J. Overbye, M. S. Sarma, Power System Analysis & Design, 6st ed. Boston: Cengage Learning, 2017.