6603-POWE SYSTEM OPERATION AND CONTROL

UNIT – V (COMPUTER CONTROL OF POWER SYSTEMS)

TWO MARKS

1. What are the information that can be received and transmitted by the
control centre? (A/M 2008)
Load forecasting - very short, short, medium, long term
Power system planning - generation, transmission & distribution.
Unit Commitment and maintenance Scheduling
Security Monitoring
State Estimation
Economic Dispatch
Load Frequency Control

2. What is EMS ? what are the major function of it? (M/J 2009, N/D 2011)

EMS is the process of monitoring, coordinating & controlling the generation,

transmission & distribution of electrical energy. It is performed at the centre’s
called ‘System Control Centre’s’, by a computer system called EMS
The functions of energy management systems are:
1. System load forecasting – Hourly energy, 1 to 7 days.
2. Unit commitment – 1 to 7 days.
3. Fuel scheduling to plants.
4. Hydro-thermal scheduling – upto 7 days.

3. What are the functions of SCADA? (OR) What role SCADA plays in electrical
power system? (N/D2007, N/D2008, N/D2010, N/D2013,M/J2013, N/D2014 ,
A/M2015.)
 Monitoring.
 Alarm.
 Control and indication of AGC.
 Data logging
 Data acquisition.
 ON/OFF control.
 RAISE/LOWER command to speed changer.

4. What is network topology? (N/D2007, N/D2012)

In order to run the state estimation, we must know how the transmission lines
are connected to the load and generation buses. This information is called
network topology.

5. What is meant by power system security? (N/D2014)

System security involves practice designed to keep the system operating when
component fails, System security can be broken down into three major function
1. System monitoring
2. Contingency analysis
3. Security – constrained optimal power flow.

6. Define state estimation. (M/J 2009, N/D2009,A/M 2011, N/D2013)

 State estimation is the process of assigning a value to an unknown system
state variable based on measurements from that system according to some
criteria.

7. What are the objectives of AGC (Apr/May 2014)

i. To hold frequency at very close to a specified nominal value.
ii. To maintain the correct value of interchange power between control areas.
iii. To maintain each unit generation at the most economic value.

8. Define Restorative state (Apr/May 2014)

To bring the extremis state back to normal through the restorative state which
is a slower process.

9. List out the conditions for normal operation of power system.(A/M 2011)
1. Corrective actions required to improve the load bus voltage,
2. Corrective actions required to eliminate the overloads
3. Load scheduling.

10. What do you understand by the security constraints? (A/M 2008)

i. Rotor Angle stability
ii. Voltage stability
iii. Steady state oscillatory stability
 16 MARKS

1. Draw the state transition diagram and explain the various operating state of
a power system and the associated control action. (N/D2008, M/J 2009,
N/D2009, A/M 2011, M/J 2013).

1. Normal state
2. Alert state
3. Emergency state
4. Extremis state
5. Restorative state

Normal state:
A system is said to be in normal if both load and operating constraints are
satisfied .It is one in which the total demand on the system is met by satisfying
all the operating constraints.
Alert state:
A normal state of the system said to be in alert state if one or more of the
postulated contingency states, consists of the constraint limits violated. When
the system security level falls below a certain level or the probability of
disturbance increases, the system may be in alert state .All equalities and
inequalities are satisfied, but on the event of a disturbance, the system may
not have all the inequality constraints satisfied. If severe disturbance occurs,
the system will push into emergency state. To bring back the system to secure
state, preventive control action is carried out.
Emergency state:
The system is said to be in emergency state if one or more operating
constraints are violated, but the load constraint is satisfied .In this state, the
equality constraints are unchanged. The system will return to the normal or
alert state by means of corrective actions, disconnection of faulted section or
load sharing.
Extremis state:
When the system is in emergency, if no proper corrective action is taken in
time, then it goes to either emergency state or extremis state. In this regard
neither the load or nor the operating constraint is satisfied, this result is
islanding. Also the generating units are strained beyond their capacity .So
emergency control action is done to bring back the system state either to the
emergency state or normal state.
Restorative state:
From this state, the system may be brought back either to alert state or secure
state .The latter is a slow process. Hence, in certain cases, first the system is
brought back to alert state and then to the secure state .This is done using
restorative control action.

2. Explain the energy management system. What are its various functions in
Power System Operation and Control? (A/M 2008, N/D2013, M/J 2013)

The EMS is a software system. Most utility companies purchase their EMS
from one or more EMS vendors. These EMS vendors are companies specializing
in design, development, installation, and maintenance of EMS within ECCs.
There are a number of EMS vendors in the U.S., and they hire many power
system engineers with good software development capabilities.

Energy management is the process of monitoring, coordinating, and

controlling the generation, transmission and distribution of electrical energy.
The physical plant to be managed includes generating plants that produce
energy fed through transformers to the high-voltage transmission network
(grid), interconnecting generating plants, and load centers. Transmission lines
terminate at substations that perform switching, voltage transformation,
measurement, and control. Substations at load centers transform to sub
transmission and distribution levels. These lower-voltage circuits typically
operate radially, i.e., no normally closed paths between substations through
sub transmission or distribution circuits.
 Since transmission systems provide negligible energy storage, supply
and demand must be balanced by either generation or load. Production is
controlled by turbine governors at generating plants, and automatic generation
control is performed by control center computers remote from generating
plants. Load management, sometimes called demand side management,
extends remote supervision and control to sub transmission and distribution
circuits, including control of residential, commercial, and industrial loads.

Functionality Power EMS:

1. System Load Forecasting-Hourly energy, 1 to 7 days.
2. Unit commitment-1 to 7days.
3. Economic dispatch
4. Hydro-thermal scheduling- up to 7 days.
5. MW interchange evaluation- with neighboring system
6. Transmission loss minimization
7. Security constrained dispatch
8. Maintenance scheduling
9. Production cost calculation

Power System Data Acquisition and Control

A SCADA system consists of a master station that communicates with remote
terminal units (RTUs) for the purpose of allowing operators to observe and
control physical plants. Generating plants and transmission substations
certainly justify RTUs, and their installation is becoming more common in
distribution substations as costs decrease. RTUs transmit device status and
measurements to, and receive control commands and set point data from, the
master station. Communication is generally via dedicated circuits operating in
the range of 600 to 4800 bits/s with the RTU responding to periodic requests
initiated from the master station (polling) every 2 to 10 s, depending on the
criticality of the data. The traditional functions of SCADA systems are
summarized:
• Data acquisition: Provides telemetered measurements and status information
to operator.
• Supervisory control: Allows operator to remotely control devices, e.g., open
and close circuit breakers. A “select before operate” procedure is used for
greater safety.
• Tagging: Identifies a device as subject to specific operating restrictions and
prevents unauthorized operation.
• Alarms: Inform operator of unplanned events and undesirable operating
conditions.

SCADA functions are listed below without stating which computer has specific responsibility.
• Manage communication circuit configuration
• Downline load RTU files
• Maintain scan tables and perform polling
• Check and correct message errors
• Convert to engineering units
• Detect status and measurement changes
• Monitor abnormal and out-of-limit conditions
• Log and time-tag sequence of events
• Detect and annunciate alarms
Automatic Generation Control
Automatic generation control (AGC) consists of two major and several minor
functions that operate online in real time to adjust the generation against load
at minimum cost. The major functions are load frequency control and economic
dispatch, each of which is described below. The minor functions are reserve
monitoring, which assures enough reserve on the system; interchange
scheduling, which initiates and completes scheduled interchanges; and
other similar monitoring and recording functions.
Load Frequency Control
Load frequency control (LFC) has to achieve three primary objectives, which
are stated below in priority order:
1. To maintain frequency at the scheduled value
2. To maintain net power interchanges with neighboring control areas at the
scheduled values
3. To maintain power allocation among units at economically desired values.

3. Briefly discuss the various functions of energy control centre. (N/D2007,

N/D2008, M/J 2009, N/D2009, N/D2010, N/D14)
The energy control center (ECC) has traditionally been the decision-center for
the
electric transmission and generation interconnected system. The ECC provides
the functions necessary for monitoring and coordinating the minute-by-minute
physical and economic operation of the power system. In the continental U.S.,
there are only three interconnected regions: Eastern, Western, and Texas, but
there are many control areas, with each control area having its own ECC.

Maintaining integrity and economy of an inter-connected power system

requires
significant coordinated decision-making. So one of the primary functions of the
ECC is to monitor and regulate the physical operation of the interconnected
grid.
Most areas today have a two-level hierarchy of ECCs with the Independent
System Operator (ISO) performing the high-level decision-making and the
transmission owner ECC performing the lower-level decision-making.
Functions of Control Centre:
Load forecasting - very short, short, medium, long term
Power system planning - generation, transmission & distribution.
Unit Commitment and maintenance Scheduling
Security Monitoring
State Estimation
Economic Dispatch
Load Frequency Control

Regional load control centre:

It decides generation allocation to various generating stations within the region
on the basics of equal incremental operating cost considering line losses are
equal and Frequency control in the region.

ECC Components
The system control function traditionally used in electric utility operation
consists of three main integrated subsystems: the energy management system
(EMS), the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), and the
communications interconnecting the EMS and the SCADA.

3 level control
1. Turbine –governor to adjust generation to balance changing load-
instantaneous control.
2. AGC (called load frequency control (LFC)) maintains frequency and net
power interchange.
3. Economic Dispatch Control (EDC) distributes the load among the units such
that fuel cost is minimum.

Primary Voltage control

1. Excitation control
2. Transmission voltage control, SVC, Shunt capacitors, transformer taps…
4. Draw the block diagram to show the hardware components of a SCADA
system
For a power system and explain the application of SCADA in monitoring and
control of power system. (A/M 2008, M/J 2009, A/M 2011, N/D2013)

There are two parts to the term SCADA Supervisory control indicates that the
operator, residing in the energy control center (ECC), has the ability to control
remote equipment. Data acquisition indicates that information is gathered
characterizing the state of the remote equipment and sent to the ECC for
monitoring purposes.

The monitoring equipment is normally located in the substations and is

consolidated in what is known as the remote terminal unit (RTU). Generally, the
RTUs are equipped with microprocessors having memory and logic capability.
Older RTUs are equipped with modems to provide the communication link back
to the ECC, whereas newer RTUs generally have intranet or internet capability.
Relays located within the RTU, on command from the ECC, open or close
selected control circuits to perform a supervisory action. Such actions may
include, for example, opening or closing of a circuit breaker or switch,
modifying a transformer tap setting, raising or lowering generator MW output
or terminal voltage, switching in or out a shunt capacitor or inductor, and the
starting or stopping of a synchronous condenser.

Functions of SCADA Systems

1. Data acquisition
2. Information display.
3. Supervisory Control(CBs:ON/OFF, Generator: stop/start, RAISE/LOWER command)
4. Information storage and result display.
5. Sequence of events acquisition.
6. Remote terminal unit processing.
7. General maintenance.
8. Runtime status verification.
9. Economic modeling.
10. Remote start/stop.

Communication technologies
The form of communication required for SCADA is telemetry. Telemetry is the
measurement of a quantity in such a way so as to allow interpretation of that
measurement at a distance from the primary detector. The distinctive feature
of telemetry is the nature of the translating means, which includes provision for
converting the measure into a representative quantity of another kind that can
be transmitted conveniently for measurement at a distance. The actual
distance is irrelevant.

Telemetry may be analog or digital. In analog telemetry, a voltage, current, or

frequency proportional to the quantity being measured is developed and
transmitted on a communication channel to the receiving location, where the
received signal is applied to a meter calibrated to indicate the quantity being
measured, or it is applied directly to a control device such as a ECC computer.

Leased-wire means use of a standard telephone circuit; this is a convenient and

straightforward means of telemetry when it is available, although it can be
unreliable, and it requires a continual outlay of leasing expenditures. In
addition, it is not under user control and requires careful coordination between
the user and the telephone company. Power-line carrier (PLC) offers an
inexpensive and typically more reliable alternative to leased-wire. Here, the
transmission circuit itself is used to modulate a communication signal at a
frequency much greater than the 60 Hz power frequency. Most PLC occurs at
frequencies in the range of 30-500 kHz. The security of PLC is very high since
the communication equipment is located inside the substations. One
disadvantage of PLC is that the communication cannot be made through open
disconnects, i.e., when the transmission line is outaged. Often, this is precisely
the time when the communication signal is needed most. In addition, PLC is
susceptible to line noise and requires careful signal-to-noise ratio [Link]
PLC is strictly analog although digital PLC has become available from a few
suppliers during the last few years.