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Toward A Smart Grid PDF
Toward A Smart Grid PDF
puter control, but much of it is still based on telephone calls between system operators at the utility
control centers, evenor especiallyduring emergencies.
In this article, we present the security, agility, and robustness/survivability of a large-scale
power delivery infrastructure that faces new threats and unanticipated conditions. By way of
background, we present a brief overview of the past work on the challenges faced in online
parameter estimation and real-time adaptive control of a damaged F-15 aircraft. This work, in
part, provided the inspiration and laid the foundation in the 1990s for the flight testing of a fast
parameter estimation/modeling and reconfigurable aircraft control system that allowed the F-15
to become self-healing in the face of damaged equipment.
Background: The Case of the Missing Wing In addition, concepts and simulations for reconfigurable net-
In the late 1980s, an Israeli pilot of an F-15 aircraft had a midair works were extended to land and air transportation networks,
collision with his wingman. As a result, the F-15 aircraft lost thus enabling more adaptive and resilient operations for the U.S.
over 90% of the right wing, losing not only control surfaces but Department of Defense (DoD). In particular, during 19931998,
also symmetry, which would typically cause the plane to flip analyses and simulations were developed for the U.S. Trans-
over and crash. Fortunately, in this case, the F-15 pilot managed portation Command and Air Forces Air Mobility Command to
to successfully land the aircraft using the remaining control sur- make their operations more resilient to a broad array of destabi-
faces combined with a judicious use of engine thrust. lizers. For example, the loss of an airbase, dimished mobility, or
In the aftermath of this event, the aircraft was put through fueling/transport capabilities in multiple areas could be sustained
extensive wind-tunnel flight dynamics and control tests at without loss or long delays of shipments of critical components.
McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) in St. Louis, Missouri. Not The IFCS laid the conceptual foundation of a self-healing
only was luck on the pilots side, but he was also an outstand- power system, where analogously a squadron of aircraft can
ingly capable pilot who accurately sensed the stability mani- be viewed in the same manner as components of a larger inter-
folds of the aircraft and continually steered the plane back into connected power delivery infrastructure, a system in which
the stability region quickly and repeatedly via the effective use system stability and reliability must be maintained under all
of the remaining control surfaces and the engine thrust. conditions, even when one (N1 contingency) or more (Nk
During 19851998, a research team at Washington Uni- contingencies) components are disabled.
versity was involved with several pertinent optimization and
control projects. This team contributed to the development of Industry and Government Programs
a damage-adaptive intelligent flight control system (IFCS) The work on the F-15 in part provided background for the
led by NASA and Boeing. The work utilized neural network creation, successful launch, and management of research
technology to predict the aircraft parameters and to continu- programs for the electric power industry, including the Elec-
ously optimize the control system response. The IFCS was tric Power Research Institute (EPRI)/DoD Complex Interac-
designed to provide consistent handling response to the pilot tive Networks/Systems Initiative (CIN/SI).
under normal conditions and during unforeseen damage or The CIN/SI aimed to develop modeling, simulation,
failure conditions to the aircraft (Figure 1). analysis, and synthesis tools for the robust, adaptive, and
reconfigurable control of the electric
power grid and infrastructures con-
nected to it. In part, this work showed
that the grid can be operated close to
the limit of stability given adequate
situational awareness combined with
better communication and controls. A
Flight Critical grid operator is similar to a pilot fly-
Parameters ing the aircraft, monitoring how the
system is being affected and how the
environment is affecting it and hav-
ing a solid sense of how to steer it in
a stable fashion. Given that in recent
decades we have reduced the genera-
Optimize Control
Response
tion and transmission capacity, we are
indeed flying closer to the edge of the
stability envelope. As a very brief tes-
figure 1. The IFCS design goal is to optimize controls to compensate for damage timonial, the July 2001 issue of Wired
or failure conditions of the aircraft. (Picture courtesy of Boeing and NASA.) magazine (http://www.wired.com/
The advantage of this becomes apparent when we see that cal one-line diagrams. Often, this work is done some time
each components processor agent has inputs from sensors in after the equipment is installed, resulting in a permanent set of
the component, thus allowing the agent to be aware of its own incorrect data and diagrams in use by the operators. What is
state and to communicate it to the other agents within the sub- needed is the ability to have this information entered automati-
station. On a system level, each agent in a substation or power cally when the component is connected to the substation
plant knows its own state and can communicate with its neigh- much as a computer operating system automatically updates
boring agents in other parts of the power system. Having such itself when a new disk drive or other device is connected.
independent agents, which know about their own component or When a new device is added to a substation, the new
substation states through sensor connections, allows the agents device automatically reports data such as device parameters
to take command of various functions that are not performed by and device interconnects to the central control computers.
either the protection systems or the central control systems. Therefore, the central control computers get updated data as
soon as the component is connected; they do not have to wait
Making Power Systems Components until the database is updated by central control personnel.
Act as Plug-and-Play Interconnects Figure 3 shows a substation bus-bar pair connected by a
One of the problems common to the management of central set of disconnect switches and a circuit breaker (the compo-
control facilities is the fact that any equipment changes to a nent processors are shown in orange). Each processor has
substation or power plant must be described and entered man- communication paths connecting it with processors of the
ually into the central computer systems database and electri- substation component in the same pattern as the electrical
connections in the substation.
When a new component is added to the substation it also
has a built-in processor. When the new device is connected,
the communication path (Figure 4) is connected to the
processor of the device it connects to electrically. When the
new components processor and communication path are
activated, it can report its parameters and interconnects to
the central control system, which can use the information to
update its own database.
figure 2. Circuit breaker with an internal processor and
Diagnostic Monitoring
communication links.
of all Transmission Equipment
Placing the processing of sensor data in a local agent
avoids the problem of sending that data to the central com-
puter via the limited-capacity SCADA communications.
The means for processing the local sensor data can be
designed by the component manufacturer, and the agent
then only needs to send appropriate alarms to the central
computers. If the component is under such stress that the
local agent determines it is in danger of being damaged, it
can initiate shutdown through appropriate interconnects to
the protections systems associated with the component.
actions that require an immediate response. Such simple Making the Power System a Self-Healing
agents already are embedded in many systems today, such as Network Using Distributed Computer Agents
circuit breakers and fuses as well as diagnostic routines. A typical sequence seen in large power system blackouts
We are using extensions of this work to develop model- follows these steps:
ing, simulation, and analysis tools that may eventually make 1) a transmission problem, such as a sudden outage of
the power grid self-healing; the grid components could actu- major lines, occurs
ally reconfigure to respond to material failures, threats, or 2) further outages of transmission lines due to overloads
other destabilizers. The first step is to build a multiple adap- leave the system islanded
tive agent model of the grid and of the industrial organiza- 3) frequency declines in an island with a large generation
tions that own parts of it or are connected to it. load imbalance
4) generation is taken off line due to frequency error
Grid Computing 5) the island blacks out
Grid computing can be described as a world in which com- 6) the blackout lasts a long time due to the time needed to
putational power is as readily available as electric power get generation back online.
and other utilities. According to Irving et al. in Plug into A self-healing grid can arrest this sequence.
Grid Computing, In Figure 5 we show three power plants connected to
Grid computing could offer an inexpensive and effi- load substations through a set of looped transmission lines.
cient means for participants to compete (but also coop- Each plant and each substation will have its own processor
erate) in providing reliable, cheap, and sustainable (designated by a small red box in the figure). Each plant and
electrical energy supply. substation processor is now interconnected in the same
In addition, potential applications for the future power sys- manner as the transmission system itself.
tems include all aspects that involve computation and are In Figure 6 we impose an emergency on the system; it
connected, such as monitoring and control, market entry and has lost two transmission connections and is broken into
participation, regulation, and planning. Grid computing holds two electrical islands. The processors in each island meas-
the promise for addressing the design, control, and protection ure their own frequency and determine that there are
of electric power infrastructure as a CAS. load/generation imbalances in each island that must be cor-
rected to prevent being shut down. The processors would
have to determine the following:
Island the frequency in each island
Island what constitutes each island
what loads and what power plants are connected to
each island
what is the load versus generation balance in each
island
what control actions can be made to restore the
load/generation balance.
The substation and power plant processors form a dis-
tributed computer network that operates independently of
the central control system and can analyze the power sys-
tem state and take emergency control actions in a time
frame that cannot be done by central computer systems.
How to effectively sense and control a widely dispersed,
globally interconnected system is a serious technological
Figure 6. An emergency condition with two islands creat- problem. It is even more complex and difficult to control
ed by transmission outages. this sort of system for optimal efficiency and maximum