Session Overview

Russell Robertson

Manager, Control Systems
Tennessee Valley Authority

Moderator

Charles Vartanian

DER Development Manager
Southern California Edison

Presenter

Integrated, Agent-Based, Real-time Control Systems for Transmission and Distribution Networks

Joint presentation with Paul Hines.

Piyush Maheshwari

Research Staff Member
IBM - India Research Lab (IRL)

Presenter

Presentation (pdf)

Role of Interoperability in the Indian Power Sector

Economical growth in India has led to a considerable growth in its power sector. Issues related to system expansion, restructured environment, and changing regulatory framework demand changes in planning and operating strategies and in the design of system architecture for future needs. We explore the role of interoperability in the Indian power system context. Four levels of interoperability viz., organizational interoperability, application interoperability, information interoperability and technical interoperability are discussed with the help of typical scenarios. It is observed that interoperability among various systems of the power grid is crucial for achieving the benefits of open architecture based future control centers.

Mark Osborn

Virtual Peaking Network
Portland General Electric

Presenter

Presentation (pdf)

Virtual Peaking Networks --

Dispatchable Standby Generation first supplies power to its designed load at the customer’s facility then any excess power flows into the PGE system. To the PGE system grid, this appears as a drop in load and an increase in supply because most sites have excess generator capacity. All relay protection equipment necessary for a safe interconnection to the distribution grid is provided. PGE’s System Control Center monitors the units 24/7 and has the option to run the generators up to 400 hours annually. To operate and manage these remote resources requires four things: a high-speed secure communications network; upgraded generator controls; intelligent metering; and a centralized control center to coordinate dispatch & maintenance of generators. PGE developed a system called “GenOnSys” that graphically manages the aggregation, dispatching, alarming, monitoring & analysis of valuable engine, generator and facility metering & power quality data. The system also monitors/dispatches other forms of distributed generation on PGE’s system; including, microturbines, solar arrays and a small biogas facility. In the near future, this system can manage solar roof-top aggregation; potentially providing the next wave of grid support for seasonal peaking on the PGE system.

Paul Hines

Research Scientist
National Energy Technology Laboratory

Presenter

Presentation (pdf)

Integrated, Agent-Based, Real-time Control Systems for Transmission and Distribution Networks.

Centralized control systems can be easier to design and generally conform to utility industry practices, but have disadvantages in terms of actuation speed and limited robustness to failures. Interoperability among devices and across systems will facilitate decentralized decision-making systems that can react quickly to local problems and, when well designed, are more resilient to failures. This paper describes a conceptual design for the integrated, real-time control of both transmission and distribution systems. The design uses intelligent control agents located at nodes in the grid. To illustrate the utility of decentralized, agent-based, real-time control we describe two agent-based control algorithms, one designed to mitigate the effects of cascading failures in the transmission system and the other designed to improve distribution circuit performance. After describing the proposed design concepts and presenting some example results, we describe some information technology advances that have the potential to enable an interoperable network of software agents with real-time control capabilities for both transmission and distribution.