Home

Emerging Technologies

ETCC Officers

Technology Assessment Working Group (TAWG)

TAWG Officers

Meetings

Meeting Minutes

Presentations

Committee Membership

IEEE PES Homepage

Contact ETCC

This page is maintained by: branislav@ieee.org
Last update:10/08/2010

The Late Breaking News Session is organized by the PES Technical Council and Emerging Technology Coordinating Committee (ETCC) to bring the latest important technical news to IEEE PES members and other PES GM 2010 attendees. The session is divided into two parts: management and technical.

Management/Executive Part of the Session, 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Chaired by Sharma Kolluri, Entergy Corporation

Emerging Technology Solutions at SCE

William Mack Grady is a Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering at U.T. Austin and a Fellow of IEEE for “Contributions to the Analysis and Control of Power System Harmonics and Power Quality.”  He received his BSEE from U.T. Arlington, and MSEE and PhD from Purdue University.  His research topics are power quality, grid studies, synchrophasors, and integration of renewable energy into the grid.  His research sponsors are EPRI, Schweitzer Engineering Labs, Austin Energy, DOE, and NREL.

  Moses Kai is a Graduate Research Assistant at U.T. Austin, working in the area of synchrophasors and impact of large-scale wind generation on ERCOT.  He received his BSEE and MSEE from U.T. Austin in 2007 and 2009, respectively, and is now working toward his PhD.  He also serves as a Teaching Assistant for the Power Electronics Lab course, which has an enrollment of more than 130 students per year.  He is a student member of IEEE and a U.S. citizen.

Observations from the Texas Synchrophasor Network

Abstract - The Texas Synchrophasor Network is an independent network consisting of 120V wall outlet voltage phasor measurement units (PMUs) at U.T. Austin, U.T. Pan American, and U.T. McDonald Observatory.  These three points represent Central ERCOT, West Texas Wind Country, and far South Texas.  There is also a 69kV PMU at Austin Energy’s substation near the U.T. Austin campus.  The network has been operating for about 18 months and has collected data for many events in ERCOT.  This presentation covers highlights of what we have learned from our observations.  Summarized, the key findings are:

1. After knowing “are the lights on everywhere,” voltage phase angles across a grid (i.e., synchrophasors) are arguably the next most important grid diagnostic measurement.
2. While voltage synchrophasors are valuable in steady-state analysis, they are far more valuable in observing the dynamic performance of a grid, e.g. damped resonant frequencies and normalized damping coefficients that indicate grid stress and stability.
3. Because voltage synchrophasors are very sensitive to grid disturbances, they can be thought of as the “EKG” of power grids.  They quickly point out abnormalities not easily seen in conventional voltage, frequency, and power measurements.  Grid “stress tests” come frequently, each time a generator trips off line.
4. If Steinmetz had known about GPS time stamping in the early 1900’s, synchrophasors would have been in common use for the past 50-60 years.
5. Excluding redundancy requirements, ten or so strategically-placed synchophasor units in a grid the size of ERCOT are adequate.
6. 120V wall outlets on distribution feeders have proven themselves to provide essentially the same results as transmission voltage measurements. 
7. The three reasons that 120V wall outlets are suitable for synchrophasor purposes are that

·  Grid oscillations are in the 0.5 to 2 Hz range and readily pass through transformers of all sizes,

·   Schweitzer relays effectively filter out distribution noise,

·  With 30 points streaming in each second from remote monitoring points, occasional dropouts due to deep voltage sags or internet traffic cause no problems. Top

Vahid Madani(Fellow IEEE)  is the technology lead for advanced wide-area warning systems and remedial action schemes (RAS), and is a principle engineer responsible for Protection and Control Standards and modernization at Pacific Gas and Electric co., USA.  He is a Tau Beta Pi member, a registered Electrical Engineer with nearly 30 years of academic and utility experience and is the recipient of many distinguished citations for leadership, innovations and contributions to the power system industry and education.

His latest assignment is deployment of the large scale interconnected advanced warning systems, integration of synchrophasor technology into the PG&E’s Energy Management System (EMS), and development of a synchrophasor based interconnected RAS.

Mr. Madani has various technical, advisory, and leadership roles in North America and internationally, has numerous publications, and has contributed to the development of many applications in system protection and intelligent restoration.

Pioneering New Frontiers in Revitalizing the Grid

Abstract - Presentation describes the elements of modernized grid and the complexities of power system, the journey to grid revitalization, and the key components of successful implementations of self managing grid.  Summary results from some the recent joint IEEE & CIGRE worldwide survey in applications of the System Integrity Protection Schemes (SIPS) are presented and analyzed.  Results demonstrate the widespread applications of SIPS and varying purposes and degrees of applications.  Applications and key components of a well developed roadmap for application of Synchronized Phasor measurements technology are presented.  A methodology and criteria for identifying the location for the Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU), typical bandwidth and storage requirements are presented along with operational and maintenance considerations.  The four pillars of successful implementation of revitalized grid are presented at the conclusion of the presentation.  A self-managing system can sense operating environment, model its behavior in that environment, and take action to change the environment or its behavior.  An autonomic self-managing system has the properties of self-configuration, self-healing, self-optimization and self-protection. Top