ERO should study feasibility of grid monitoring system: FERC-DOE

Washington (Platts)--6Feb2006

The US Dept of Energy and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission have
recommended that one of the first tasks of the still-to-be-created nationwide
electric reliability organization be to investigate and report on the
"feasibility, cost and timeline" of establishing a system that will permit
real-time monitoring of the North American electric transmission system.

     In a Feb 2 report to Congress released by FERC Monday, the agencies
concluded that while current technologies could "provide a foundation for
establishing a [Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition]-based real-time
information system," a more effective system would be dependent on emerging
technologies.

     Congress, in language added to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, directed
DOE and FERC to complete the study in response to findings from a US-Canada
task force that examined the causes of the massive August 2004 blackout. The
task force found that "a lack of situation awareness" was a "principal cause"
of the blackout, which left more than 50-mil people without power and cost the
US between $4-bil and $10-bil.

     The DOE-FERC study stopped short of recommending that a real-time grid
monitoring system be pursued, but said that such a system could "provide early
warning of deteriorating system conditions," allowing operators "to take
corrective actions." In addition, the report said a monitoring system could
"limit the cascading effect of disturbances by providing wide-area system
visibility" and improving "transmission reliability planning."

     Such a system would also have secondary benefits, the agencies said,
including providing more diagnostic tools than are currently available and
allowing for more effective use of automatic controls for "self-correction."

     "Technology currently exists that could be used to establish a real-time
transmission monitoring system to improve the reliability of the nation's bulk
power system," the report said, adding that "emerging technologies hold the
promise of greatly enhancing transmission system integrity and operator
situation awareness, thereby reducing the possibility of regional and
inter-regional blackouts."

     If an interconnection-wide transmission monitoring system is pursued, the
study suggested that it be implemented in two phases, with the first focusing
on upgrading current SCADA-based systems and the second concentrating on the
use of emerging technologies.

     A system based on upgraded SCADA systems would require data collection
from a "limited number of data sources, collected every few seconds," the
report said. A system based on advanced technologies would collect data from
"thousands" of sources "many times per second."

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http://electricityalert.platts.com.

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