Island Operations of Electric Generators Connected to One Substation

While increasing integration of renewable energy sources (RES), which are unregulated and difficult to predict, a large system of nuclear power plants must provide balancing peaks in the production of renewable energy. It is also important to simulate the rapid changes in the power of individual large Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) units, and for these regimes to train operators of nuclear units. Therefore the paper is aimed to island operations of more parallel electricsynchronous generators connected to one substation of a power grid

Development of Simulator with Artificial Intelligence on Secondary Power System Operation

Centralized control from a control center is popular in secondary power systems. However, as operating systems are modernized and automated, operators rarely have opportunities to experience various situations. On the other hand, operators are expected to quickly cope with any situation once an accident happens. In this paper, artificial intelligence has been applied to the training of a secondary power system operation. The developed system has simulation, training, and inquiry modes. In the training mode, it helps operators train in restoring power systems. If an operator succeeds in restoration, the system evaluates executed operations. If he fails, the system generates and presents an example of restoration operations. These functions have been realized by expert systems of a production rule type. Methods of automatically generating restoration process and of evaluating executed operations have been described in detail. Restoration operations are generated so as to restore blackout load buses one by one. The used rules are very simple, and are easy for operators to understand. On an operator's request, it explains how each operation is generated. Evaluation is made on items such as new blackouts and overloads caused by executed operations. If any operations come under these items, then the system gives some warnings and corrections about them. The system was applied to an example power system, and its effectiveness was verified

AITRANS – Web Application for Training and Testing Operative Personnel in High Voltage Power Substations

AbstractThis paper presents the web application – AITRANS – used for the periodic training and testing of operative staff in high voltage substations of the Timisoara Branch of Transelectrica, the Romanian Power Transmission System Operator. According to legislation in Romania, operative staff of the Transmission System Operator (TSO) must accomplish a given number of hours of training every semester where they will be familiarized with new and/or modified procedures and the legislation used in the operation of high voltage power system substations. After these training sessions, each person must take a test to ensure proper assimilation of the new information. To optimize the training and evaluation process, a web application was developed. With a user name and password (for user level), each member of the operative staff can log in and study the materials at any time, and also self-assess their knowledge by taking several tests. The administrator can remotely observe the training status of each person, and will also generate a final test at the end of the training period. Using the web application instead of the traditional method of training and testing proved to be very effective. The feedback from staff was positive

Sensor network design for a secure electric energy infrastructure

With the increasing threat of terrorism around the world, more attention has been paid to the security of the electric transmission infrastructure. Events in countries like Colombia, which has experienced as much as 200 terrorist attacks on its transmission infrastructure per year, show the vulnerability of the power system to these kinds of events. Although it is very difficult to avoid or predict when and where these terrorist acts can occur, quick assessment of the situation can help operators to take the optimal actions in order to avoid cascading events and the consequent partial or total blackouts. Wireless sensor networks are becoming the technology of choice for sensing applications mostly due to their ease of installation and associated lower costs. This thesis proposes a novel conceptual design for an application of wireless sensor technology for assessing the structural health of transmission lines and their implementation to improve the observability and reliability of power systems. A two layers model is presented for overcoming the communication range limitations of smart sensors and two operational modes are introduced. The main goal was to obtain a complete physical and electrical picture of the power system in real time, and determine appropriate control measures that could be automatically taken and/or suggested to the system operators once an extreme mechanical condition appears in a transmission line. For evaluating the feasibility of the concept, a dispatcher training simulator (DTS) based on the energy management system (EMS) platform from AREVA T&D was used for simulating the operation of the electric power system in real time as it is monitored at an actual energy control center

Modelling the Interoperability and the Use of Control Equipment in Electrical Substations

Simulators can be defined as information systems which reliably reproduce specific phenomena and they are mainly used in training, although their field of application has grown to include manufacturing and medicine among others. In electrical engineering, simulation is an indispensable tool when working with complex systems due to the fact that it enables engineers to understand how systems work without actually needing to see them. They can learn how they work in different circumstances and optimize their design with considerably less cost in terms of time and money than if they had to carry out tests on a physical system. By using computer simulation, not only can an electrical system be designed, but it can also be optimized and its behavior examined in-depth more quickly and cheaply than by using prototypes, tests or analytical studies. Therefore, by being able to see the responses produced as the different parameters are varied, a much deeper understanding of the system under study is reached. In order to properly simulate a virtual world, technologies such as realistic graphics and dynamic simulation with real-time calculations must be used. Peripherals must be used for the system to interact with the user and the immersion comes as a result of stimuli to sight, hearing and touch. A critical factor is the possibility to solve the equations in real-time; that is, there should be no delay compared to the normal environment’s response. There is an important amount of effort being directed towards these objectives. This paragraphs deals with the development of an operation simulator for training and the fundamental objective is to develop a simulator for electrical substations. It will present the methodology to model, simulate and optimize the interoperability and the use of control equipment in electrical an substation to train operators by means of a virtual reality environment

Cyber security of the smart grid: Attack exposure analysis, detection algorithms, and testbed evaluation

While smart grid technologies are deployed to help achieve improved grid resiliency and efficiency, they also present an increased dependency on cyber resources which may be vulnerable to attack. This dissertation introduces three components that provide new methods to enhancing the cyber security of the smart grid. First, a quantitative exposure analysis model is presented to assess risks inherited from the communication and computation of critical information. An attack exposure metric is then presented to provide a quantitative means to analyze the model. The metric\u27s utility is then demonstrated by analyzing smart grid environments to contrast the effectiveness of various protection mechanisms and to evaluate the impact of new cyber vulnerabilities. Second, a model-based intrusion detection system is introduced to identify attacks against electric grid substations. The system expands previous research to incorporate temporal and spatial analysis of substation control events in order to differentiate attacks from normal communications. This method also incorporates a hierarchical detection approach to improve correlation of physical system events and identify sophisticated coordinated attacks. Finally, the PowerCyber testbed is introduced as an accurate cyber-physical envi- ronment to help facilitate future smart grid cyber security research needs. The testbed implements a layered approach of control, communication, and power system layers while incorporating both industry standard components along with simulation and emulation techniques. The testbed\u27s efficacy is then evaluated by performing various cyber attacks and exploring their impact on physical grid simulations

Cybersecurity in Power Grids: Challenges and Opportunities

Increasing volatilities within power transmission and distribution force power grid operators to amplify their use of communication infrastructure to monitor and control their grid. The resulting increase in communication creates a larger attack surface for malicious actors. Indeed, cyber attacks on power grids have already succeeded in causing temporary, large-scale blackouts in the recent past. In this paper, we analyze the communication infrastructure of power grids to derive resulting fundamental challenges of power grids with respect to cybersecurity. Based on these challenges, we identify a broad set of resulting attack vectors and attack scenarios that threaten the security of power grids. To address these challenges, we propose to rely on a defense-in-depth strategy, which encompasses measures for (i) device and application security, (ii) network security, and (iii) physical security, as well as (iv) policies, procedures, and awareness. For each of these categories, we distill and discuss a comprehensive set of state-of-the art approaches, as well as identify further opportunities to strengthen cybersecurity in interconnected power grids

CPSA: A Cyber-Physical Security Assessment Tool for Situational Awareness in Smart Grid

It has now become critical and important to understanding the nature of cyber-attacks and their impact on the physical operation of emerging smart electricity grids. Modeling and simulation provide a cost-effective means to develop frameworks and algorithms that address cyber-physical security challenges facing the smart grid. Existing simulation tools support either the communication network or the power system, but not both together. Thus, it is difficult to explore the effects of cyber-physical attacks on power system dynamics and operations. In order to bridge this gap, a cyber-physical co-simulator is required. In this paper, we present a novel integrated cyber-physical security co-simulator tool capable of cyber-physical security assessment (CPSA), which simulates the communication network and the power system together. The tool identifies future vulnerable states and bad measurements and guides the operator at the control center on taking appropriate action to minimize disruption of the physical power system operation due to cyber-attack. The developed tool can be used in understanding of power system monitoring, analyzing the nature of cyber-attacks, detecting bad measurement data, bad command, disabled devices and understand their impact on the operation of the power system

A Novel Integrated Real-time Simulation Platform for Assessing Photovoltaic Penetration Impacts in Smart Grids

For future planning and development of smart grids, it is important to evaluate the impacts of PV distributed generation, especially in densely populated urban areas. In this paper we present an integrated platform, constituted by two main components: a PV simulator and a real-time distribution network simulator. The first simulates real-sky solar radiation of rooftops and estimates the PV energy production; the second simulates the behaviour of the network when generation and consumption are provided at the different buses. The platform is tested on a case study based on real data for a district of the city of Turin, Italy