Towards More Flexible and Robust Data Delivery for Monitoring and Control of the Electric Power Grid

With the increase in the monitoring of status data at very high rates in high voltage substations and the ability to time synchronize these data with GPS signals, there is a growing need for transmitting this data for monitoring, operation, protection and control needs. The sets of data that need to be transferred and the speed at which they need to be transferred depend on the application – for example, slow for post-event analysis, near real-time for monitoring and as close to real-time as possible for control or protection. In this paper, we overview the requirements for the next-generation power grid’s communication infrastructure in the areas of flexibility and quality of service, with extensive citations of power industry practitioners and researchers, and analyze implementation options. We also overview technologies in the computer science field of distributed computing that can be brought to bear to help meet these requirements, yet to date have not been discussed in the context of grid modernization. Additionally, we argue against the industry trend of using either TCP/IP or web services for real-time data exchange for fast controls. We then describe GridStat, a novel middleware framework we have developed that is suitable for the power grid and its application programs. Test results demonstrate that such a flexible framework can also guarantee latency that is suitable for fast wide-area protection and control.

[1]  Lei Wang,et al.  Implementation of online security assessment , 2006, IEEE Power and Energy Magazine.

[2]  Jeffrey B. Roberts,et al.  Barriers to a wide-area trusted network early warning system for electric power disturbances , 2002, Proceedings of the 35th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[3]  C.W. Taylor,et al.  The anatomy of a power grid blackout - Root causes and dynamics of recent major blackouts , 2006, IEEE Power and Energy Magazine.

[4]  George Coulouris,et al.  Distributed systems - concepts and design , 1988 .

[5]  Paulo Veríssimo,et al.  Distributed Systems for System Architects , 2001, Advances in Distributed Computing and Middleware.

[6]  A. Bose,et al.  Communication models for third party load frequency control , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems.

[7]  John A. Zinky,et al.  Architectural Support for Quality of Service for CORBA Objects , 1997, Theory Pract. Object Syst..

[8]  Arun G. Phadke,et al.  Electromechanical wave propagation in large electric power systems , 1998 .

[9]  Kenneth P. Birman,et al.  Reliable Distributed Systems: Technologies, Web Services, and Applications , 2005 .

[10]  Doug Terry,et al.  Epidemic algorithms for replicated database maintenance , 1988, OPSR.

[11]  P. Myrda,et al.  The true vision of automation , 2007, IEEE Power and Energy Magazine.

[12]  L. Hossenlopp.  Engineering perspectives on IEC 61850 , 2007, IEEE Power and Energy Magazine.

[13]  Kenneth P. Birman,et al.  Like it or not, web services are distributed objects , 2004, CACM.

[14]  John A. Zinky,et al.  PASS-a service for efficient large scale dissemination of time varying data using CORBA , 1999, Proceedings. 19th IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (Cat. No.99CB37003).

[15]  John A. Zinky,et al.  Runtime Performance Modeling and Measurement of Adaptive Distributed Object Applications , 2002, OTM.

[16]  F. Cleveland,et al.  IEC TC57 Security Standards for the Power System's Information Infrastructure - Beyond Simple Encryption , 2006, 2005/2006 IEEE/PES Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exhibition.

[17]  P. Miller,et al.  Real-time dynamic security assessment: fast simulation and modeling applied to emergency outage security of the electric grid , 2006, IEEE Power and Energy Magazine.

[18]  Robert H. Thomas,et al.  The Architecture of the Cronus Distributed Operating System , 1986, IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems.

[19]  Andrew S. Tanenbaum,et al.  Distributed systems: Principles and Paradigms , 2001 .

[20]  J. F. Hauer,et al.  The DOE Wide Area Measurement System (WAMS) Project: Demonstration of dynamic information technology for the future power system , 1995 .

[21]  P. Myrda,et al.  Delivering accurate and timely data to all , 2007, IEEE Power and Energy Magazine.

[22]  M. Ingram,et al.  Toward effective substation automation , 2007, IEEE Power and Energy Magazine.

[23]  D.M. Divan,et al.  A distributed static series compensator system for realizing active power flow control on existing power lines , 2004, IEEE PES Power Systems Conference and Exposition, 2004..

[24]  Deepak Divan,et al.  A Distributed Static Series Compensator System for Realizing Active Power Flow Control on Existing Power Lines , 2007 .

[25]  Khosrow Moslehi,et al.  Power System Control Centers: Past, Present, and Future , 2005, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[26]  Kenneth E. Martin,et al.  WACS-Wide-Area Stability and Voltage Control System: R&D and Online Demonstration , 2005, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[27]  Kenneth P. Birman,et al.  Bimodal multicast , 1999, TOCS.

[28]  Ozalp Babaoglu,et al.  ACM Transactions on Computer Systems , 2007 .

[29]  Douglas Comer,et al.  Network Systems Design Using Network Processors , 2003 .

[30]  Kevin Tomsovic,et al.  Designing the Next Generation of Real-Time Control, Communication, and Computations for Large Power Systems , 2005, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[31]  J. Schmid,et al.  Get on the digital bus to substation automation , 2007, IEEE Power and Energy Magazine.

[32]  Richard E. Schantz,et al.  Programming Support in the Cronus Distributed Operating System , 1986, IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems.

[33]  David E. Bakken,et al.  Dynamic and composable trust for indirect interactions , 2006 .

[34]  J. Zinky,et al.  Complementary methods for QoS adaptation in component-based multi-agent systems , 2004, IEEE First Symposium onMulti-Agent Security and Survivability, 2004.

[35]  Robbert van Renesse,et al.  dcOvercoming Communications Challenges in Software for Monitoring and Controlling Power Systems , 2005, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[36]  David E. Bakken,et al.  Flexible qos-managed status dissemination middleware framework for the electric power grid , 2006 .

[37]  M.M. Adibi,et al.  Overcoming restoration challenges associated with major power system disturbances - Restoration from cascading failures , 2006, IEEE Power and Energy Magazine.

[38]  C Ralph Mackiewicz.  Technical Overview and Benefits of the IEC 61850 Standard for Substation Automation , .

[39]  Erlend Smørgrav Viddal.  RATATOSKR: WIDE-AREA ACTUATOR RPC OVER GRIDSTAT WITH TIMEL INESS, REDUNDANCY, AND SAFETY , 2007 .

[40]  Curtis Dyreson,et al.  Impediments to survivability of the electric power grid and some collaborative EE-CS research issues to solve them , 2002 .

[41]  Ryan Andrew Johnston.  Obtaining high performance phasor measurements in a geographically distributed status dissemination network , 2005 .

[42]  David E. Bakken,et al.  Survivability and Status Dissemination in Combined Electric Power and Computer Communications Networks1 , 2000 .

[43]  J.E. Daggle.  Postmortem analysis of power grid blackouts - The role of measurement systems , 2006, IEEE Power and Energy Magazine.

[44]  Venkata S. Irava,et al.  Low-cost delay-constrained multicast routing heuristics and their evaluation , 2006 .

[45]  A.G. Phadke,et al.  Blackouts and relaying considerations - Relaying philosophies and the future of relay systems , 2006, IEEE Power and Energy Magazine.

[46]  Carl H. Hauser,et al.  Distributing Time-Synchronous Phasor Measurement Data Using the GridStat Communication Infrastructure , 2006, Proceedings of the 39th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'06).

[47]  Stian Fedje Abelsen.  ADAPTIVE GRIDSTAT INFORMATION FLOW MECHANISMS AND MANAGEM ENT FOR POWER GRID CONTINGENCIES , 2007 .

[48]  S. Rajagopalan,et al.  Realizing the Power of Data Marts , 2007, IEEE Power and Energy Magazine.

[49]  Anjan Bose.  Power System Stability: New Opportunities for Control , 2003 .

[50]  G. Manimaran,et al.  An Information Architecture for Future Power Systems and Its Reliability Analysis , 2002, IEEE Power Engineering Review.

[51]  David E. Bakken,et al.  Fault Tolerance Mechanisms in Status Dissemination Middleware , 2003 .

[52]  J Willis.  The future beckons. , 1999, Nursing times.

[53]  A. Bose,et al.  A failure to communicate: next generation communication requirements, technologies, and architecture for the electric power grid , 2005, IEEE Power and Energy Magazine.

[54]  Carl H. Hauser,et al.  Security, trust, and QoS in next-generation control and communication for large power systems , 2008, Int. J. Crit. Infrastructures.

[55]  Kenneth P. Birman,et al.  The untrustworthy Web services revolution , 2006, Computer.

[56]  T. Kropp.  System threats and vulnerabilities [power system protection] , 2006, IEEE Power and Energy Magazine.

[57]  Johannes Gehrke,et al.  Towards Expressive Publish/Subscribe Systems , 2006, EDBT.