IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2014 - 18

guest editorial

Michael I. Henderson

when the lights go out
getting power systems running again

"Where Were you When the
lights went out?" this question has
become more and more common in
communities suffering from major
storms and other power outages resulting from design failures, equipment
misoperations, and errors by both operators and planners. engineers are doing
their best to harden the grid and promote
high levels of reliability required for
meeting the demands of the digital age.
More fundamentally, electricity is the
lifeblood of any society. As a best case,
the widespread loss of electricity disrupts
the economy and disturbs daily routines.
As a worst case that has become increasingly common, the loss of electricity can
result in the loss of lives and exacerbate
the consequences of natural disasters.
engineers and the regulatory community apply lessons learned from major
power system events. the great u.S.
northeast blackout of 1965 resulted in
the formation of reliability councils and
power pools and improved the coordination of bulk power system operations
and planning across wider areas. the
blackout of 14 August 2003 gave rise to
mandatory reliability standards intended
to prevent widespread outages of power
system infrastructure. More recently, the
massive destruction of electric power
infrastructures from storms such as hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy have
triggered the hardening of power system
facilities against natural phenomena.
"Do you have power yet?" the means
of achieving rapid restoration of electric
service is a critically important requirement of power systems that can only be
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2013.2284633
Date of publication: 17 December 2013

ieee power & energy magazine

accomplished with both the necessary
infrastructure and deployment of qualified
personnel. restoration is realized with
reliable sources of black start power and
a transmission and distribution network
that provides flexible paths for restoring
service as quickly as possible. Personnel must be well trained before they can
develop and execute successful restoration plans. operational communication
media and the clear exchange of information among people and equipment are
necessary ingredients for the successful
implementation of any restoration plan.
technological advances facilitate system
restoration by providing new sources of
power, improving observability and controllability of the network, and assisting
system operators with "expert system"
advice on real-time system procedures.
Sophisticated technologies are being
developed and applied to the power
system, including flexible alternating current transmission systems, phasor measurement units, and variable
energy resources. In addition, distributed
resources hold the promise of improving reliability through microgrids. All of
these and other technological changes
provide tremendous opportunities for
improving the reliability of power supply to loads, and they hold the promise
for rapidly restoring the system after
unavoidable outages of electric power
service. the implementation of new technologies, however, also poses major challenges that must be addressed. Gone are
the days of command and control of the
power system and a simpler time when
operators could easily predict the system
response using their innate feel for the
system. operators must now deal with
the application of many new sources of

power; variable generation and unknown
load characteristics; and the coordination
of disparate entities owning generation
resources, transmission systems, distribution facilities, distributed generators, and
loads. Distributed control of the network
and other technological advances, however, are improving the human-machine
interface and the reliable operation and
planning of the power system.
Standards must keep pace with technological developments. For example,
Ieee Standards Coordinating Committee 21 (SCC21) is actively working on
amending Ieee 1547-2003 to address
voltage regulation (Vr), voltage ridethrough (Vrt), and frequency ridethrough (Frt) that better coordinate
with transmission system requirements.
As of this writing, the amendments of
draft 1 of Ieee 1547 will not mandate
Vr/Vrt/Frt, but the draft standard will
be permissive of these capabilities "as
mutually agreed to by the area electric
power system and distributed resource
operators." In my opinion, further consideration should be given to a Vr/Vrt/
Frt mandate because the anticipated
large-scale integration of distributed
resources could pose a serious challenge
to both the reliable operation and the
rapid restoration of the power system.
Ieee is addressing necessary issues
to successfully integrate new technologies, as shown by the wide range of
publications and professional activities.
this issue of IEEE Power & Energy
Magazine focuses on power system
restoration, so acknowledgement of the
extraordinary work done by the Ieee
Power & energy Society restoration
Dynamics task Force (rD tF) is in
order. the rD tF, chaired by nelson
january/february 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2014