Breaker to Control Center Integration & Automation: Protection, Control, Operation & Optimization

Recent technological advances in protection, control and optimization are enabling a more automated power system. This paper proposes the use of these technologies towards an integrated and seamless infrastructure for protection, control and operation. This infrastructure is the basis for accommodating and providing robust solutions to new problems arising from the integration of renewables, namely more uncertainty and steeper ramp rates. At the lower level we propose a dynamic state estimation of a protection zone (EBP) for the purpose of providing protection for the zone. The estimation based protection (EBP) provides the real time dynamic model of the zone as well as the real time operating conditions. Since protection is ubiquitous, it can cover the full system. We assume that GPS synchronization of the EBP is available providing accurate time tags for the real time model and operating conditions. The real time model and operating conditions can extent from the “turbine to the toaster”. We propose a methodology for automatically constructing the power system state locally and centrally at the control center with distributed controls as well as centralized controls depending on the application. For example, the centralized system wide real time model is used to perform system optimization functions, and then send commands back through the same communication structure to specific power system components. Since protection is ubiquitous and the modern power system has several layers of communication infrastructure, the proposed approach is realizable with very small investment. The availability of the real time dynamic model and state locally and centrally enables the seamless integration of applications. Three applications are discussed in the paper: (a) settingless protection, (b) voltage/var control and (c) feeder load flexibility scheduling. The proposed approach and infrastructure can form the basis for the next generation of Energy Management Systems.