Friday, September 23, 2011

Power Outage in the South-West – Controlling Huge Power Systems is a Challenge

A huge interconnected power system follows 100 per cent the rules of laws like the Kirchhoff's Law and others. The Physics of the electrical system does not care about share-holder value, regulation and de-regulation – it is a law that can’t be changed by lawyers and bank managers!

The electrical power in every homes outlet is understood as a given – as sun shine and rain!! It is just here.

Two weeks after the power outage in the South-Western, it is likely that missing communication at the level of humans had a big impact on the stability of the power system.

Click HERE for some more details.

Click HERE for a discussion if the regulation or the de-regulation of the power market had a huge impact on the power outage.

Whatever people’s interpretation is: the electrical system is an electrical system that cannot be cheated.

I’m wondering why the control systems involved in providing a stable power system in the South-West seemed to not have all crucial information about the power system exchanged between all technical systems (parties) involved. There is a standard available for many years that would allow to exchange all real-time information needed to control the power system: IEC 60870-6 TASE.2 (ICCP).

There is one lesson we have to learn: The information systems could also not change the Kirchoff’s and other laws. The electrical system is an electrical system for the last 100+ years and for the future …

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