Presentation: Real Time Monitoring and Regulation of the US Electric Power Grid

With increased sensitivity of the deregulated electric power market to power trading vagaries and their potential influence on network security, reliability, and stability; regulation at the US grid level may be warranted.  Chuck will outline newly developed technologies in electric power transmission, distribution networks, and database technology, enabling near real time solutions for very large loosely coupled network power networks.  Real time data from substations operating at 230 Kvolt and higher and all branch flows from those stations can be assembled on one large data server and made available to authorized personnel.  Calculations can be carried out in near real time and can be used to avert a potential nationwide blackout, voltage sag, or frequency deviations that would cause catastrophic financial hardships on the country. The approach includes real time detection of anomalies, as well as near real time comparison of the current performance of the overall system to the optimal behavior, i.e. a direct comparison of the current generation dispatch with the optimum economic power dispatch.  A distance measure is proposed to provide real time indication of the overall performance of the deregulated power grid.  Recommended control actions are computed using recently developed algorithms for automatic clusterization, and subsequent calculation of control actions necessary to avert collapse.