STOP THE DATA FLOOD

ANTHONY JOHNSONCONSULTING ENGINEERADVANCED TECHNOLOGYJULY 27, 2015

Abstract

With the last decade of substation automation and the smart grid, the amount of data collected by various systems, Energy Management Systems (EMS), Distribution Management System (DMS), synchrophasor data collection systems, and many other systems, has grown exponentially. This flood of information has resulted in a loss of information coming to Planning and Operations. We need to develop applications to aid Planning and Operations in providing actionable information.

SHORT HISTORY LESSONHow we got here

The Early Years• Energy Management Systems (EMS) – – Mostly transmission information: 10-50k points

• Distribution Management System (DMS) – – That’s why we have line crews and substation

operators, right?

• Smart Meters – – The meter reader who knew how to avoid the bad

dogs.

• Phasors – – From Star Trek???

The Middle Ages• EMS– Now economical to look at distribution substations: 50 – 300k points

• DMS – A few (10-100) remote controlled switches improve the response time– Automation of distribution capacitors

• Smart Meters– Industrial and commercial customers look at Time of Use Metering--needs

some communication

• Phasors– Some really smart professor is looking at some high speed time stamped

monitoring

• Digital Relays– Relays with a few hundred settings make the relay flexible

The Renaissance• EMS– Continued cost reductions increase the presence of substation

automation (300,000 – 1,000,000 points.)

• DMS – As communication technology costs fall, the amount of distribution

equipment talking back increases by 30k-50k devices.

• Smart Meters – A business case is made to provide a previously expensive solution to all

customers.

• Phasors – Early demonstration projects of Synchrophasor applications.

• Digital Relays – Relays are becoming more complicated with several thousand setting,

communication capability of the relays has improved.

The Modern Age• EMS

– Goal is total system monitoring with 10M+ points available• DMS

– Distribution equipment capacity now allows thousands of devices to work together

• Smart Meters – Deployed to all customers

• Phasors – Synchrophasor applications are more common in control rooms

• Digital Relays – Relays are part of the automation systems -- 10k+ plus data

points and settings available at a touch of a button

SO MORE DATA IS GOOD. RIGHT?

Operations Interface

Planning Use

• Model validation– Transmission model– Load model– Generation model

• Post-event root-cause analysis

Limitations of DATA

• More information than can be easily absorbed• System has not changed in 30 years• Need more information/less data• Existing methods rely on human interpretation of

the data.

BIG DATA :Tools and techniques that process extremely large data sets promptly

Big Data Characteristics

• Volume• Variety• Velocity • Variability• Veracity• Complexity

Promises of Big Data• Operations– Document the root cause of an event – Guide recovery from an event– Identify elevated risk configurations

• Planning– Validate system model information– Provide derivation of load model configurations– Validate generator parameters

Complications

• Operating information changes in seconds• Cybersecurity • Regulatory-required compartmentalization• Multi-company agreement needed for model

standardization

Today’s utility Big Data mainly details energy usage

What we need: Real-time big data analytics to support the operation of the Grid.

THANK YOU.