Expert systems for on line security assessment-A preliminary design

It is argued that automatic security assessment schemes cannot generate information of high quality until their architectures, which are now wholly algorithmic, are changed to hybrids combining algorithms with expert systems. In particular numerical algorithms should continue to be used for simulating the effects of contingencies, but expert systems should be developed for selecting the contingencies and interpreting the simulation results. It is claimed that these changes will make automatic schemes more closely resemble the manual schemes that are used offline to generate assessment information of high quality. The problems of integrating hybrid software into existing energy management systems (EMSs) are viewed as far from trivial. These problems are discussed, and a solution is suggested, namely, the use of a network of workstations tied to existing EMS computers. >