Data service in Grid-based Future Control Centers

As the central nerve system of the power systems, the control center has evolved over the years into a complex communication, computation, and control system. The traditional control center, SCADA/EMS, was built to automate control functions in electric utilities. With the expansion and interconnection of power systems and the advent of electric power deregulation, electric utility organizations require the integration of control functions with business processes beyond corporate boundaries. The requirement needs the support of the new generation control centers, which should be more decentralized, integrated, flexible and open. Grid technology offers dependable, consistent, and pervasive access to resources irrespective of their different physical locations or heterogeneity, using open standard data formats and transport protocols. It has been utilized to design the novel distributed power system control centers. Data service, as one of the most important components, is the base of other services inside the proposed future control centers framework. This paper gives a brief introduction of the current data acquisition and processing system, and presents the challenges it is being confronted with. The design of the data service in the grid-based future control centers is discussed. The development roadmap for the data service is also considered.