EECS Graduate Students win 1st Place in NAPS Best Paper Competition
Three graduate students from EECS department, Mojtaba Sepehry, Mohammad Heidari and
Avinash Banajiger were co-authors of a paper that was presented at the 47th North
American Power Symposium (NAPS) 2014 in Pullman, Washington. Their paper was selected
as the winner of the first place in the best paper competition. The paper is titled
鈥淎 New Algorithm for Reliability Evaluation of Radial Distribution Networks.鈥�
Reliability evaluation for a large distribution system with the presence of alternative
parts is a necessity for smart grid implementation. This paper proposes a linearized
model for reliability computation for complex radial distribution network. Load point
reliability indices could be completed using a simplified technique which will reduce
the computation complexity compared to existing methods such as breadth-first or depth-first
method. This method will ease the reliability computation in the presence of communication
infrastructure and distributed energy resources in the distraction of performance
based distribution system reconfiguration and automation.
NAPS has been held every year at a different university in North America since 1969
and provides an open forum for participants from academia and industry to exchange
innovative ideas and solutions. NAPS continues the long held tradition of encouraging
student-presented papers and recognizing student best efforts by awards.
Mojtaba (Ph.D. candidate) Mohammad (Ph.D. candidate) and Avinash (M.S. student) are
part of Distribution Reliability and Automation Research Group. Dr. Visvakumar Aravinthan
is their advisor and a co-author of this paper. This work is supported by Power System
Engineering Research Center grant T-53 titled 鈥淩eliability Assessment of Cyber Enabled
Power System in the Presence of Renewable Sources and Storages.鈥�