Evolving Distribution Operations - Grid Operations Role

Nimesh Shah Senior Engineer, Operations Planning,

T&D Field and Grid Operations, BC Hydro Cheong Siew

Manager, Distribution Automation & Strategic Planning, T&D Asset Investment Management, BC Hydro

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Grid Operations • Introduction • Functions • Objectives • Stake holders • Evolving Distribution Operations • Expectations and deliverables • Performance measurement • Challenges

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Introduction • Grid Operations

– Operate the designed system safely and reliably to deliver and/or receive power to end customers

– Analogy • Asset Investment (Car owner), Distribution System (Car),

Operators (Drivers), and Customers (Passengers) • Bottom line – Customers (Passengers) need to reach the desired

location – On time, safely, and satisfied – On time – Distribution system is designed with sufficient capacity,

resiliency and with manual and/or automated Protection &Control systems

– Safely and satisfied – Distribution system is operated to provide power safely, and reliably for customer satisfaction

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Functions • System operation for safety and reliability • Outage & Operations planning and scheduling • System monitoring and actions to maintain system

health in normal and stressed (i.e. due to high load) system conditions, and restoration for faulted (i.e. partial or complete failure of an electrical element) system condition

• Market operations and support to neighboring utilities • Implementation of defined rules and operating

procedures

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Objectives

• Safety – worker and public • Reliability – customers, neighboring utility and

regional grid (western) • Market Operations for power exchange • Operational excellence • Stakeholder for asset investment decisions –

system improvement and sustainment

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Stakeholders • Field staff

– Operate system equipment, execute manual switching – Isolate the system under fault condition – Schedule repair and/or replace (major) system equipment – Install and commission (including SCADA) new equipment

• Asset Investment – Funding for new installation, maintenance, repair or

replacement

• Neighboring utility and regional grid – Maintain regional grid system and market operations

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Evolving Distribution Operations • Advanced Distribution System – Smart Grid

– Distribution Automation Devices (SCADA) • Reclosers – overhead system, can also function as

sectionalizers or switches • Vista Switchgear – underground system, with protection • Voltage Regulators, Capacitor Banks, Faulted Circuit

Indicators, discrete Feeder Sensors, etc. – Distribution Management System – Advanced applications - VoltVar Optimization, FLISR, etc. – Distributed Energy Resources – IPPs (Hydro, Solar, Wind

etc.), net metering, energy storage (NaS battery) etc. – Electric Vehicles

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Expectations and Deliverables • Traditional objectives – Safety, Reliability and

Market Operations PLUS • Bi-directional power flow and fault flow • Energy conservation (with VVO) • Peak shaving (with VVO) • Maximum utilization – Accommodate

different types of load and resources, and reconfigure system to optimize utilization

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Expectations and Deliverables

• 100% visibility of system up to and including – Customer Load – Smart Metering – Infrastructure and SCADA devices

• Tools like DMS will support operations by providing near-real-time solutions

• Improved Reliability • Improved or no degradation in Safety • Improved Customer Satisfaction

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Performance Measurement

• Grid Operations also operates systems that measure the system performance, e.g. reliability, savings, etc.

• Input to Asset Investment to determine the investment performance and for future investment decisions

• Asset Investment needs to provide clear objectives and targets to Grid Operations

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Performance Measurement

• Example – VVO System in BC Hydro

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Performance Measurement

• Example – VVO System in BC Hydro

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Performance Measurement

• Example – VVO System in BC Hydro

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Performance Measurement

• Example – SCADA controlled Recloser

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Performance Measurement

• Example – Energy Storage Battery • Developing report

– Availability Hours – Planned discharging events – Number of outages on distribution feeder – Successful islanding during the outages – Customer hours lost saved by islanding – Communication failure events

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Challenges

• Potential miscoordination, e.g. station recloser and recloser both trips at the same time. Is there only one fault? – Work with Asset Investment and Engineering to determine

acceptable coordination margins. – Decide on policy to address operation after event

• Non-standard operation, e.g. “special” configuration and/or settings

• Communication failures disrupting monitoring and control of Distribution Automation devices

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Challenges • Presently, different tools for different operations –

EMS, DMS/POCC, OMS (PowerOn), CROW – In the future, there might be only one tool but hard to

coordinate all the work procedures and processes

• Operations planning – more complex system with more objectives

• Advanced applications like FLISR and VVO need to be very sophisticated to account for the most complex scenarios (otherwise they will be turned off)

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Challenges – FLISR Example

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Normal System

Challenges – FLISR Example

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Faulted System

Challenges – FLISR Example

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Challenges – FLISR Example

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Challenges – FLISR Example

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Challenges

• Centralized VVO requires accurate monitoring and sufficient operational flexibility for all operating conditions.

• Different substation configurations or system conditions may not allow VVO to run if the situation is not modelled or if there is insufficient monitoring or operating equipment (e.g. VT source sensitivity for split bus, substation transformer on hot stand by, additional constraints caused by transmission line or generation contingencies, etc.)

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Conclusion

• In the evolving Smart Grid world, Grid Operations operates as well as monitors, measures and reports the system performance

• Asset Investment and Grid Operations need to continue to strategize and deliver on a distribution system that meets the utility’s and customers requirements

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Next Step & Action Plan – Input from all

• What are the practices in different utilities? • Are there any documented processes? • Are there any standards? If not then should

we work on the standard practices and process documentation?

• What are the monitoring parameters? • Any critical points missing in the presentation?

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Questions 26

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