Power System

• Why maintaining secure operations is important?

• Keep the light on
• What if the power grid fails to function?
• Blackout events
• Northeast blackout of 1965
• Northeast blackout of 2003

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 Northeast blackout of 1965
• Significant disruption in the supply of electricity
• Disrupted areas:
• Canada: Ontario
• Eight U.S. states: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Vermont
• 80,000 square miles (207,000 km2)
• 30 million people
• without electricity for up to 13 hours

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 Northeast blackout of 1965

Weary commuters waiting for trains

back to Long Island sleep on the floor of
Penn Station in Manhattan during the Emergency police work to free passengers stuck
blackout on Nov. 9, 1965 in an elevator in a building on East 32nd street
during the blackout on November 9, 1965.
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 Northeast blackout of 2003
• A widespread power outage.
• Disrupted areas:
• Canada: Ontario
• Eight U.S. states (Northeastern and Midwestern)
• More widespread/severe than 1965 blackout
• 55 million people
• Some get power in 7 hours
• Most did not get power back until 2 days later
• Some areas waited for weeks
• Long-term effects
• reliability provisions in the Energy Policy Act of 2005
• Creation of North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC)
• The reliability standards of NERC are mandatory.
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 Blackout’s Sequence of Events
The following is the blackout's sequence of events on 08/14/2003 (times in EDT):
12:15 p.m. Incorrect telemetry data renders inoperative the state estimator, a power flow monitoring tool operated by the
Indiana-based Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator (MISO). An operator corrects the telemetry problem, but
forgets to restart the monitoring tool.
1:31 p.m. The Eastlake, Ohio generating plant shuts down. The plant is owned by FirstEnergy, an Akron, Ohio-based company.
2:02 p.m. The first of several 345 kV overhead transmission lines in northeast Ohio fails due to contact with a tree in Walton
Hills, Ohio.[14]41°21′22″N 81°34′10″W[citation needed]
2:14 p.m. An alarm system fails at FirstEnergy's control room and is not repaired.
3:05 p.m. A 345 kV transmission line known as the Chamberlin-Harding line sags into a tree and trips in Parma, south of
Cleveland.
3:17 p.m. Voltage dips temporarily on the Ohio portion of the grid. Controllers take no action.
3:32 p.m. Power shifted by the first failure onto another 345 kV power line, the Hanna-Juniper interconnection, causes it to sag
into a tree, bringing it offline as well. While MISO and FirstEnergy controllers concentrate on understanding the failures, they
fail to inform system controllers in nearby states.
3:39 p.m. A FirstEnergy 138 kV line trips in northern Ohio.[15]
3:41 p.m. A circuit breaker connecting FirstEnergy's grid with that of American Electric Power is tripped as a 345 kV power line
(Star-South Canton interconnection) and fifteen 138 kV lines fail in rapid succession in northern Ohio.
3:46 p.m. A fifth 345 kV line, the Tidd-Canton Central line, trips offline.
4:05:57 p.m. The Sammis-Star 345 kV line trips due to under voltage and over current interpreted as a short circuit. Later
analysis suggests that the blackout could have been averted before this failure by cutting 1.5 GW of load in the Cleveland–Akron
area.
4:06–4:08 p.m. A sustained power surge north toward Cleveland overloads three 138 kV lines.
4:09:02 p.m. Voltage sags deeply as Ohio draws 2 GW of power from Michigan, creating simultaneous under voltage and over
current conditions as power attempts to flow in such a way as to rebalance the system's voltage.

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 Blackout’s Sequence of Events 2003
The following is the blackout's sequence of events (Continued):
4:10:34 p.m. Many transmission lines trip out, first in Michigan and then in Ohio, blocking the eastward flow of power
around the south shore of Lake Erie from Toledo, Ohio, east through Erie, Pennsylvania, and into southern Erie county,
but not most of the Buffalo, New York, metropolitan area. Suddenly bereft of demand, generating stations go offline,
creating a huge power deficit. In seconds, power surges in from the east, overloading east-coast power plants whose
generators go offline as a protective measure, and the blackout is on.
4:10:37 p.m. The eastern and western Michigan power grids disconnect from each other. Two 345 kV lines
in Michigan trip. A line that runs from Grand Ledge to Ann Arbor known as the Oneida-Majestic interconnection trips. A
short time later, a line running from Bay City south to Flint in Consumers Energy's system known as the Hampton-Thetford
line also trips.
4:10:38 p.m. Cleveland separates from the Pennsylvania grid.
4:10:39 p.m. 3.7 GW power flows from the east along the north shore of Lake Erie, through Ontario to southern Michigan
and northern Ohio, a flow more than ten times greater than the condition 30 seconds earlier, causing a voltage drop
across the system.
4:10:40 p.m. Flow flips to 2 GW eastward from Michigan through Ontario (a net reversal of 5.7 GW of power), then
reverses back westward again within a half second.
4:10:43 p.m. International connections between the United States and Canada start to fail.
4:10:45 p.m. Northwestern Ontario separates from the east when the Wawa-Marathon 230 kV line north of Lake
Superior disconnects. The first Ontario power plants go offline in response to the unstable voltage and current demand
on the system.
4:10:46 p.m. New York separates from the New England grid.
4:10:50 p.m. Ontario separates from the western New York grid.
4:11:57 p.m. The Keith-Waterman, Bunce Creek-Scott 230 kV lines and the St. Clair–Lambton #1 230 kV line and #2 345
kV line between Michigan and Ontario fail.
4:12:03 p.m. Windsor, Ontario, and surrounding areas drop off the grid.
4:12:58 p.m. Northern New Jersey separates its power-grids from New York and the Philadelphia area, causing a cascade
of failing secondary generator plants along the New Jersey coast and throughout the inland regions west.
4:13 p.m. End of cascading failure. 256 power plants are off-line, 85% of which went offline after the grid separations
occurred, most due to the action of automatic protective controls.
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 North American Power Systems
Two main areas:
• the Eastern Interconnection
• the Western Interconnection

Three other regions:

• the Texas Interconnection
• the Quebec Interconnection
• the Alaska Interconnection

The Alaska Interconnection:

• two separate isolated grids
• managed by the Alaska Systems
Coordinating Council (ASCC)
The other four interconnections
Asset value: > 1 trillion U.S. dollars are managed by NERC.
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 NERC
• North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC)
• nonprofit corporation based in Atlanta, GA.
• Formed in 2006.
• mission: ensure the reliability of the North American
bulk power systems.
• consists of 4 interconnections.
• oversees 6 regional reliability entities.
• cover contiguous USA, Canada, and part of Mexico.
• main task: develop reliability standards.

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 NERC

Four interconnections:
• the Eastern Interconnection
• the Western Interconnection
• the Texas Interconnection
• the Quebec Interconnection
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 NERC

Currently, there are six regional

reliability entities.

Previously, there were 8 such entities. The

other two were: Southwest Power Pool
Regional Entity (SPP RE) and Florida Reliability
Coordinating Council (FRCC).

RFC: Reliability First Corporation WECC: Western Electricity Coordinating Council

SERC: SERC Reliability Corporation MRO: Midwest Reliability Organization
Texas RE: Texas Reliability Entity NPCC: Northeast Power Coordinating Council
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 FERC
• FERC
• Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)
• an independent U.S. federal regulatory agency
• regulates interstate transmission and wholesale of electricity.
• monitors and investigates energy markets.
• regulates interstate transmission of oil and natural gas.
• …
• mission: assist consumers in obtaining economically efficient,
safe, reliable, and secure energy services at a reasonable cost
through appropriate regulatory and market means, and
collaborative efforts.
• main task: enforce regulations concerning the reliable
availability of energy resources.
• FERC oversees NERC in the United States.
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 U.S. Power Plants

Geographic Distribution of U.S. Power

Plants (>= 1 MW) 12
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 Power System Activities

Source: Khuntia, Swasti R., et al. "Time-horizons in the planning and operation of transmission networks: an overview." IET 13
Generation, Transmission & Distribution 10.4 (2016): 841-848.
 Operations

CAISO market time lines (from day-ahead to real-time)

Source: Makarov, Y. V., Etingov, P. V., Ma, J., Huang, Z., & Subbarao, K. (2011). Incorporating uncertainty of
wind power generation forecast into power system operation, dispatch, and unit commitment procedures.
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IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy, 2(4), 433-442.
 Operations
Day-ahead Scheduling (Unit Commitment) 24 hours

Determine unit commitment (ON/OFF) status

Intra-day Intermediate Adjustment 1-4 hours

Adjust unit commitment solution

Real-time Economic Dispatch 5-15 minutes

Adjust generation dispatch point

Automatic Generation Control 2-4 seconds

Maintain frequency
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 Flexible Transmission
• Topology Control / Transmission Switching
• Transmission network is traditionally treated as a
static network in short-term operations
• Not modeled in existing day-ahead and real-time
applications
• Operators can and do reconfigure the network
• Benefits
• cost saving
• violation relief
• loss reduction
• …
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 Flexible Transmission
• Flexible AC Transmission System (FACTS)
• generally a power electronics-based system.
• a system composed of static equipment used in the
actual AC transmission.
• provide control over one or multiple AC transmission
system parameters, e.g. line reactance.
• Benefits:
• increase power transfer capability
• reduce system generation cost

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 Power system cyber-attack
• State estimation and false data injection (FDI)
cyber-attack
• State estimation collects measurements and determines the
system status.
• State estimation helps operators monitor the system and
provide a base case for other real-time applications.
• State estimation solution depends on measurements.
• Measurements to state estimation could be hacked.
• FDI cyber-attack can manipulate measurements; false
measurements may mislead system operators and cause
physical consequences.

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 Power system cyber-attack
Current industry practices of power system real-time operations

t=0 Real-time RTU State

RTCA RT SCED
measurement Estimation
s

t=5 Real-time RTU State

RTCA RT SCED
measurement Estimation
s

……
……

……
……

False
measurements

This process repeats continuously in real time.

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 Renewable Energy Sources
• Renewable Energy Sources (RES)
• RES are resources that contain energy and can be
naturally renewed on a human scale.
• multiple types of RES:
• hydro, wind, solar, and biomass
• concerns:
• variable and intermittent RES
• new challenges to the grid
• variability
• uncertainty

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 Energy Storage
• Energy Storage System (ESS)
• ESS is a system that captures and stores energy produced at
one time and uses it at a later time.
• high energy density versus high power density.
• multiple types of ESS:
• battery, flywheel, pumped hydroelectric, compressed air
• applications:
• help integrate more variable RES into the power grid
• environmental benefits - emission reduction
• maintain stable frequency
• load shifting
• alleviate fluctuation of load and variable renewables
• black start unit

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 Advanced Metering Infrastructure
• Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI)
• a system that measures, collects, and analyzes energy
usage, and communicates with metering devices.
• components:
• smart meters, communication network, data management
system
• two way communications
• facilitate demand side management and smart home.

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 Demand Side Management
• Direct load control: a program that asks customers to reduce their
electricity consumption
• during periods of higher prices in the wholesale energy markets, or
periods of high production cost for regulated system
• pre-signed contracts between utilities and customers
• compensation
• Time-of-use (TOU) tariffs/rates
• high price over peak hours but low price over other periods
• Real-time dynamic pricing
• wholesale energy market prices forwarded to end customers
• Energy efficiency
• provide the same quality of services with less electricity consumption

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 Distributed Energy Resources
• Distributed Energy Resources (DER)
• decentralized as compared with traditional power plants
• located close to the load area
• widely spread out but low capacity of individual unit
• Multiple types of DERs:
• distributed renewable energy resources (wind/solar)
• distributed micro-turbine generator
• distributed energy storage
• demand response
• Benefits to the grid:
• reduce network losses
• enhance reliability and resilience

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 Microgrid
• Microgrid (MG) is an entity that coordinates DERs in an
autonomous and decentralized way.
• MG is a localized group of electricity sources and loads.
• The penetration level of DERs in a microgrid is high.
• ESS are typically included in MGs to alleviate volatility.
• It relieves the burden on the bulk power grid and improve
grid resiliency.

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 Community Microgrid

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