An Enhanced Edge Computing Technique for Detection of Voltage Fluctuation in Grid-tied Renewable Energy

Renewable energy sources (RES) such as solar photovoltaic and wind are becoming the most attractive power generation options in many nations. Even while high penetration seems likely, power quality anomalies such as voltage fluctuation, harmonics, and frequency fluctuation associated with RES hinder seamless integration. The variability and unpredictability of these sources create the most oddities. In grid-tied renewable energy, monitoring power quality efficiently is crucial. Power grid monitoring solutions in related literature use sensor-based cloud and edge computing techniques. The existing systems struggle with excessive latency when delivering large amounts of generated data to the cloud. To fill this gap, a new approach for the detection and localization of voltage fluctuation is proposed in this study. The approach integrated three techniques namely; feed-forward neural network (FFNN), Stockwell transform, and anomaly-aware edge computing to detect and locate voltage fluctuation in a GtRE. Using MATLAB/Simulink, virtual emulation of a modified IEEE 33 Bus and a GtRE representing a section of Ado Ekiti (in Nigeria) low-voltage distribution grid are carried out for data generation and system evaluation. Feature extraction was carried out in a Python IDE using Stockwell transform. The voltage fluctuation events are detected and localized based on the extracted features using the trained FFNN model deployed and evaluated within three microcontroller-based computing devices. The proposed approach integrated anomaly-aware with edge computing to send only voltage data that are considered abnormal to a dedicated data center for visualization and storage. Performance evaluation of the proposed technique on the simulated GtRE demonstrates a significant decrease of 98% and 90% in latency when compared to cloud computing and conventional edge computing respectively. Comparison of the proposed approach to two closely related solutions in literature also demonstrates a 50% and 92.5 % reduction in latency. The contribution of the study is the reduced latency and minimal bandwidth utilization achieved by the implementation of the developed technique.