Abstract
Acoustic emission monitoring is often used in the diagnosis of electrical and mechanical incipient faults in high voltage apparatus. Partial discharges are a major source of insulation failure in power transformers and the differentiation from other sources of acoustic emissions is of the utmost importance. Also, it is important to give an indication of the PD source location in order to obtain a useful diagnosis. This paper reports the developments in partial discharges source location through the associated acoustic emissions using three different algorithms.

Abstract
Partial discharges are a major source of insulation failure in electric power transformers. Their detection can be achieved through the associated acoustic emissions, and this work reports on the investigation of a fibre laser sensor based on a phase-shifted chirped fibre grating for acoustic emission detection in the power transformer environment. The performance of the sensing head is characterized and compared for different surrounding media: air, water and oil.

Abstract
The increasing levels of wind power penetration motivated a revisitation of methods for setting operating reserve requirements for the next and current day. System Operators (SO) are now moving from deterministic intro probabilistic approaches, and including wind power forecasts in their decision-making problems. In this manuscript, a probabilistic approach that evaluates the consequences of setting each possible reserve level through a set of risk indices is compared with frequently used deterministic rules and a probabilistic rule where wind power uncertainty is described by a Gaussian distribution. The comparison is performed over a period of five months for a realistic power system, using real load and wind power generation data. Results highlight the limitations of deterministic rules, challenge the Gaussian assumption and illustrate the usefulness of risk indices derived from the probabilistic forecast and using a full probabilistic methodology.

Abstract
An aggregator agent for electric vehicles is a commercial middleman between a system operator and plug-in electrical vehicles (EV). For the system operator perspective, the aggregator is seen as a large source of generation or load, which could provide ancillary services such as spinning and regulating reserve. Generally these services will be provided in the day-ahead and intraday electricity markets. In addition, the aggregator also participates in the electricity market with supply and demand energy bids. In this paper, the integration of these concepts in an electricity market environment is discussed through proposing a framework for the information characterization (and availability) between aggregator, system operators and clients. A specific market (the Iberian Market - MIBEL) is discussed. In the sequence, the different degrees of availability of the relevant information are identified and characterized, including the variables that are necessary to forecast.

Abstract
The paper presents a method for the analysis and design of industrial production systems based on a joint assessment of the cost and the quality of service. The operation of a production system is seen as the accomplishment of a sequence of missions, each one corresponding to the cost-effective production and delivery of a specified quantity of products within a specified time frame. The paper shows that the probability of successfully accomplishing a mission is a non-linear function of the cumulative production downtime and that this time cannot be obtained using conventional Markov based techniques. The paper also introduces an analytical model and a procedure that allows the density function of the downtime to be obtained and shows how, using these tools, the production costs and the quality of service may be assessed and related to the internal design of the shop floor. The method seems to be particularly valuable in the analysis of production systems integrated in just-in-time supply chains, in which the reliability of the deliveries is an outstanding requirement.

Abstract
The recent development of the concept of microgrid (mu Grid), associated to the emergent interest in microgeneration (mu Gen), has raised a number of challenges regarding the evaluation of the technical, economical and regulatory impacts of a high penetration of this kind of solutions in the power systems. In this paper, the topic of security of supply is addressed, aiming at evaluating the influence of mu Gen and mu Grids in the medium- and long-term availability of generation to serve the forecasted load. A Monte-Carlo based methodology is used to evaluate this influence and to assess the capacity credit of those entities.