IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - March/April 2021 - 99

they will continue to be important in
the future.
Experience gained from blackouts
and other situations that put the power
system under severe stress should be
shared so that other system operators
can use it in developing and designing
their systems. Knowledge gained about
so-called hidden failures that occur under stressed system conditions or as a
consequence of several unlikely events
should be used to improve power system security.

Some Lessons From the
COVID-19 Pandemic
When a disruptive event with farreaching consequences for society, like
the COVID-19 pandemic, hits, the experience and knowledge obtained from
such an event may also apply to power
system operations. Even if a pandemic
caused by an infectious virus and a
power system follow different physical
laws, I think that there are some parallels. Both a pandemic and the malfunction of the power system can have
dramatic impacts on social life, economics, and other vital functions of our
society. I am sure that when the pandemic has been brought under control,
governments, authorities, companies,
and other organizations will analyze
the course of events, consequences, and
efficacy of different preventive actions
and try to draw conclusions that will be
useful in the containment of future epidemics and pandemics. Without claiming to have made a more systematic
study of the current pandemic and its
consequences, I want to give two examples that I think also have relevance
for the electric power system.
One of the fundamental principles
of the European Union (EU) is a free
and nondiscriminatory market that
is open to actors from all its member states. However, when the virus
started to spread, some countries
stopped the export of equipment essential for health care to other member states, despite earlier agreements.

march/april 2021

The needs of the nation's health system were deemed more important
than the laws and agreements of the
EU, and the overall coordination and
assessment within the EU were on
hold. This was later rectified, and
when the first phase of the pandemic
was over, free trade seemed to function more or less as intended.
Many countries in Europe are critically dependent on the exchange of
electric power. It can be in the form of
" pure " energy imports over a year or
seasonal power exchanges over national borders. What will happen if should
there be an energy shortage somewhere
in Europe? Will each country primarily look to its own needs, or will the
overall needs of the interconnected
system have priority? If we look at
the experiences from the initial phase
of the COVID-19 crisis in Europe,
the former of these two may likely be
the initial outcome. Furthermore, the
trade of electric power system equipment might also be hindered due to national concerns, and this will have an
impact but on a longer timescale. The
complex, international supply chains
that are dominating the manufacture of
many high-tech products are also used
by the producers of high-voltage equipment and can affect the maintenance
and replacement of critical components
in the power system.
As far as I know, power systems
worldwide have worked more or less
as intended, and no severe interruptions directly caused by the pandemic
have been reported. I believe this
is due to today's highly automated
systems, including remote-control
operations. The daily operation of
power systems has been marginally
affected, and the end consumers have
not noticed anything. Of course, the
economic lockdown has reduced the
consumption of electric power, but the
power system has still withstood the
stresses incurred by the crisis. Also,
most of the longer-term work, e.g.,
planning, has continued without major

distraction, mostly because of homeoffice work and reliable Internet connections. This is a strength, but as John
A. Casazza, a prominent U.S. power
engineer, once said, " Look at a system's
or a procedure's greatest strength to see
the source of its greatest weakness. "
How essential processes and procedures used in the power industry may
be exposed to various disturbances and
what impact they can have on power
system security both deserve a systematic and critical review. Also, processes
and procedures that might appear as
peripheral to the power systems operation can turn out to be critical during
long-lasting emergencies such as the
COVID-19 pandemic.

Concluding Remarks
This issue contains many interesting examples of how the problems
are addressed in different systems in
the world. Each system is unique and
requires specific solutions to meet security requirements. Due to changes
and developments in technology, regulations, and organizations, new solutions and concepts must continuously
be contrived. The future power system
must be designed to cope with known
and unknown events and disturbances
through a combination of robustness
and resilience to meet the security and
other requirements of society.

For Further Reading
P. Kundur et al., " Definition and classification of power system stability IEEE/
CIGRE joint task force on stability terms
and definitions, " IEEE Trans. Power Syst.,
vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 1387-1401, Aug. 2004.
doi: 10.1109/TPWRS.2004.825981.
A. Gholami, T. Shekari, M. H.
Amirioun, F. Aminifar, M. H. Amini,
and A. Sargolzaei, " Toward a consensus on the definition and taxonomy of
power system resilience, " IEEE Access,
vol. 6, pp. 32,035-32,053, June 2018.
doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2018.2845378.
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IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - March/April 2021

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Contents
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