Federation researcher awarded ARC Future Fellowship

A Federation University researcher has been awarded a prestigious Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship for a project that aims to increase energy resilience and efficiency in next-generation community microgrids.

Associate Professor Jiefeng (Jerry) Hu, who is the microgrid and renewable energies stream leader in the Centre for New Energy Transition Research (CfNETR) and the course coordinator of electrical engineering for both undergraduate and postgraduate in the Institute of Innovation, Science and Sustainability (IISS), has been awarded nearly $1.2 million to fund the four-year project. He is the first researcher from Federation to be awarded an ARC Future Fellowship.

The grant will allow Associate Professor Hu to bring two PhD students to work on the project. He was one of 100 researchers across Australia awarded a Future Fellowship from 602 applications.

Associate Professor Hu is the sole investigator on the project to develop a next-generation electrical power network and innovative power converter control methods for a microgrid – a system of residential or commercial connected properties that can generate and share their power.  He says the project is also an opportunity to draw in the expertise from researchers from across Federation.

The converter will be driven by a control algorithm that Associate Professor Hu and his team will develop to give the system the smarts it needs to perform efficiently.

"My work is focused on developing new technologies for our future microgrids. A microgrid system generates energy locally using solar panels and wind turbines, and can integrate multiple households, including residential homes, medical centres, shopping centres, or even a university campus like Mt Helen to form a local smart energy system," Assoc Prof Hu said.

"If something happens to the main power grid, a microgrid can step in to provide reliable, cost-effective and sustainable energy to the local customers within that microgrid."

One of the key drivers for creating microgrids is Australia's transition from electricity created from fossil fuels to renewables and fears of a shortfall in energy when coal-powered power stations are closed.

Associate Professor Hu says integrating more renewables into the power system is not without its challenges. Current power systems are relatively stable because of the large synchronous generators that generate electricity. This means electric frequency and voltage are generally reliable.

"However, if we try to put a lot of photovoltaic (PV) panels and energy from wind turbines into the power grid, that risks polluting the power system, making the power system unstable," Assoc Prof Hu said.

"So how do we fix this problem? We have to decentralise our power grid into different parts and into multiple small-scale microgrids, and these can operate independently and sustainably. This will increase general reliability."

Associate Professor Hu says there are many power converters already available on the market, but they lack the intelligent control to increase efficiency, which improves the quality of the power. Integrating many PV panels into a grid means power generation must be coordinated and the power converter, which is considered the brain of the system, needs to communicate with its 'neighbours' to optimise the power flow so energy losses can be reduced.

"For a single house, the system doesn't have to be too smart. In this case, it's a single inverter, but with a microgrid with a lot of households connected to share energy, those converters must talk to each other and then try to optimise their own actions," he said.

The project will begin with the development of a prototype power converter. Associate Professor Hu says a decision needs to be made on the circuit topology, and the research team will perform simulations to check the feasibility of the design.

The funding will also allow for the purchase of the electronic devices needed to build the prototype before the researchers develop the control algorithm which will 'tell' the converter how to work, when to work, and how much power and voltage it should generate.

The final phase will put the converter into a real-world application, like a household. Associate Professor Hu says industry will be invited to get involved and to help guide the real-world testing. Finally, data will be collected and analysed to see if there are opportunities for improvement.

If the system works as expected, Associate Professor Hu hopes it will lead to commercialisation opportunities.

"From the consumers' perspective, they might want to know what kind of benefit they will get from this project. One of the potential benefits of microgrids is we can help people reduce their electricity bills." Associate Professor Jerry Hu

“They will be getting less power from the grid, and they can just their own solar and wind generation to reduce their electricity costs.

"Another key idea with this project is if consumers have a shortfall of power, they can purchase power from anyone in their neighbourhood who has excess power at that moment.

“So we need to decide on a mechanism, like a buy and sell scheme, for customers. For example, if I want to buy your electricity, this could be much cheaper than electricity from the main power grid. If I have more power than I need, I can sell it to you.  There has been a lot of work already modelling this."

Associate Professor Hu says backing from Federation's Competitive Grants Support Program was another key reason for winning the grant.

Related reading:

Program to boost Australia-India economic ties through new energy systems

New energy expertise goes global with international partnership

Researchers develop tool to help businesses reach net zero targets