Research Themes +
Energy Technologies Area (ETA) researchers are continually building on the strong scientific foundation we have developed over the past 50 years. We address the world’s most pressing climate challenges by bringing to market energy-efficient innovations across the buildings, transportation, and industrial sectors. ETA is at the forefront of developing better batteries for electric vehicles; improving the country's aging electrical grid and innovating distributed energy and storage solutions; developing grid-interactive, efficient buildings; and providing the most comprehensive market and data analysis worldwide for renewable technologies like wind and solar.
Strategic Initiatives +
The Energy Technologies Area (ETA) Strategic Plan is the guiding force for our research and development for the next ten years. It clearly charts a path toward clean-energy solutions and focuses on five detailed Strategic Initiatives. The Plan provides an in-depth look at how ETA is accelerating research to provide affordable, clean energy to all while accomplishing deep, economy-wide decarbonization, looking to avoid a rise in global average temperature while simultaneously developing solutions to increase humanity's resilience to extreme weather volatility.
Publications
News +
For media inquiries,
please contact ETA
Interim Communications Manager
Kiran Julin

kjulin@lbl.gov
About Us +
The Energy Technologies Area (ETA) is unique in translating fundamental scientific discoveries into scalable technology adoption. Our approach combines an understanding of the marketplace and the role of state and federal regulation and policies. ETA's research drives real-world, practical results that affect and improve the everyday lives of Americans and those across the globe. Saving energy and battling the Climate Crisis are key to the foundation of our research, which is driven by technoeconomic analysis and in-lab experimentation and discovery.

2012 FIDVR Events Analysis: Valley Distribution Circuits

Publication Type

Report

Date Published

07/2013

Authors

Bravo, Richard J, Steven Robles

Abstract

The majority of fault-induced delayed voltage recovery (FIDVR) events on the SCE system occur during summer monsoonal season. These weather conditions bring rain and thunderstorms to hot climate areas where high concentrations of residential air conditioners (RAC) are in use. During these conditions, lightning strikes to the distribution and sub-transmission systems may result in system faults. If these faults decay the voltage below a certain threshold, they can cause air conditioner motors to stall. As a result, the RAC stalling behavior prevents voltage from immediately recovering, provoking FIDVR events. FIDVR events have been typically recorded in the transmission system as shown in Figure 1-1. It shows the voltage being depressed to 79 percent during a system fault. The voltage is kept suppressed by the stalling of RAC and slowly recovers as the RAC’s thermal overloads start opening, disconnecting the RAC from the system. The voltage does not stop at pre-fault voltage, instead it keeps increasing. This incremental change is due to the high amount of customer load disconnecting from the system and system capacitors remaining online. The system voltage starts decreasing to pre-fault levels when the system capacitors disconnect due to the over-voltage and customer load starts coming back to the system.

Also see 2014 FIDVR Events Analysis on Valley Distribution Circuits and 2013 FIDVR Events Analysis on Valley Distribution Circuits

Year of Publication

2013

Notes

Prepared for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory by Southern California Edison Advanced Technology, Engineering & Technical Services.