The electric power industry is going through a period of increased performance requirements during system events and wide area disturbances, combined with the availability of new communications and advanced measuring and protections functions. The successful implementation of these new technologies is only possible when there is a good understanding of the problems that the industry faces, the experience from pilot projects and open discussions on the future developments. That is why the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) is forming a research program specifically aimed at improving the understanding of protection and control issues, as well as development and testing of improved methods that result in optimal power system protection for the 21st Century.  To ensure that this research program is responsive to industry needs in the system protection and control area, Pacific Gas & Electric hosted a workshop in San Francisco, organized by Vahid Madani in cooperation with Pei Zhang (EPRI) in order to gather information and facilitate a discussion between industry experts from North and South America, Europe and Asia.  The ultimate goal of this effort is to reduce research and development costs by collaboratively developing solutions to protection and coordination challenges.  Participation in this process at an early stage will enable stakeholders to shape the direction of this critical program and maximize benefits from the fruits of the program.

The workshop included multiple presentations by experts from different countries addressing the deployment and applications of large phasor measurements systems for adaptive system protection and improvements in system visibility, stability and analysis. The new IEEE C37.118 and IEC 61850 standards and their impact on the field were also discussed. The experience from projects in Brazil, Italy, Japan, Mexico and the United States was shared by experts from these countries.
Even during the lunch breaks the participants in the workshop continued discussions on synchronous and asynchronous out-of-step conditions detection, verification of system models, dynamic state estimation based on PM and dynamic stability related simulation of N-1 from the existing system condition. Positive sequence versus phase domain solutions, communications architectures and their impact on phasor measurements based SIPS or out-of-step applications, as well as the testing of such systems and their components were also covered.

The key issues that the workshop tried to address are related to the future applications of phasor measurements. There is a consensus in the industry that now many IEDs have such built-in functions and the big question is what to do with them. A good summary of the goals of the industry was presented by Phil Overholt from the US Department of Energy. He described the North American Synchro-Phasor Initiative (NASPI) and the goals to better understand the needs and develop visualization tools, improved system models validation and state estimation, as well as the analysis of system wide events and communication architectures. Future developments should lead to full coverage of wide-area visibility and real-time assessment of the state of the system, including congestion management and dynamic ratings.
Long term goals target real-time protection, distributed closed loop control and automatic smart switchable networks.

Graphic 1 caption: Power/Frequency plot during system event