Methods for managing high or low voltage conditions from selected areas of a power system of a utility company

• US 8,078,332 B2
• Filed: 06/13/2008
• Issued: 12/13/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 07/26/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Alstom Technology Ltd. (Alstom SA)
• Original Assignee: Areva T&D Incorporated (French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission)
• Inventors: Castelli, Gennaro, Hackett, Michael, Howard, Michael Quinn, Jones, Lawrence Edmund, Shung, HulChu Su, Brand, Heath Daniel
• Primary Examiner(s): ROBERTSON, DAVID
• Application Number:
  US12/139,189
• Publication Number:
  US 20090030759A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,278 Days
• Field of Search: 700286-298, 700/17, 705/7, 307/18, 307/19
• US Class Current: 700/298
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 31/40 Testing power supplies testing photovoltaic devices H02S50/10
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0486 Drag-and-drop
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/14 Digital output to display device ; Cooperation and interconnection of the display device with other functional units
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/167 Audio in a user interface, e.g. using voice commands for navigating, audio feedback
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06315 Needs-based resource requirements planning or analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/206 Drawing of charts or graphs
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/60 Editing figures and text; Combining figures or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/40 Scaling of whole images or parts thereof, e.g. expanding or contracting
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 23/00 Alarms responsive to unspecified undesired or abnormal conditions
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/377 for mixing or overlaying two or more graphic patterns G09G5/02, G09G5/397 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 2203/20 Simulating, e g planning, reliability check, modelling or computer assisted design [CAD]
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 3/00 Circuit arrangements for ac mains or ac distribution networks
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 3/0012 Contingency detection
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 3/008 involving trading of energy or energy transmission rights
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/045 for graphical visualisation of monitoring data
• CPC Class Codes: Y02E 60/00 Enabling technologies; Technologies with a potential or indirect contribution to GHG emissions mitigation
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 10/50 Systems or methods supporting the power network operation or management, involving a certain degree of interaction with the load-side end user applications
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 40/20 : Information technology specific aspects, e.g. CAD, simulation, modelling, system security
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 50/10 : Energy trading, including energy flowing from end-user application to grid

Abstract

Methods are provided for managing high or low voltage conditions from selected areas of a power system of a utility company. Rubber-banding or lassoing is used to select geographic areas. Potential low or high voltage situations are identified in the selected geographic areas. Geographic displays are overlayed with superimposed VAR reserves to create overlayed geographic displays for the selected geographic areas. The overlayed geographic displays are used to identify potential low or high voltage instances in the selected geographic areas.

Claims

1. A method of managing high or low voltage conditions from selected areas of a power system of a utility company, the utility company having an energy management system with a control panel, the method comprising:

providing, to an operator, geographical displays of a power system on the energy management system control panel;

overlaying, on the geographical displays of the power system, live data information identifying potential low or high voltage situations and volt-amp reactive power (VAR) reserves associated with elements of the power system;

providing, to the operator, rubber-banding or lassoing for selecting geographic areas of interest encompassing power system elements and VAR reserves within the selected area of interest of the power system;

providing, to the operator, rubber banding or lassoing of selected geographic areas of interest for creating situational dynamic dashboard displays from the selected geographic areas, each dashboard display being saveable and recallable and dynamically refreshed with live data, wherein the creating of the dashboard displays includes dropping geographic areas that are rubber-banded or lassoed into the dashboard displays;

applying the overlayed geographic displays by an operator at the energy management system to identify potential VAR reserves to alleviate a voltage condition in the system.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

applying voltage contours to identify the potential low or high voltage instances.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the overlayed geographic displays are applied to provide power flow information of the power system.

4. The method of claim 1,wherein the overlayed geographic displays are applied to determine available VAR reserves.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

determining location and amount of available VAR reserves.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing real time information relative to location and amount of available VAR reserves.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the geographic displays are applied to determine if there are sufficient VARS in portions or all of the selected geographic areas where low or high voltage conditions manifest themselves.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

the energy management system injecting or removing VARS from the power system according to low voltage situations identified by the operator.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the control panel includes a context menu.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

applying the context menu to show reserves.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying network elements in the selected geographic areas.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

displaying VAR reserves as a summary for injection of VAR reserves into the power system and for absorption of VARS out of the power system by a device type.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the device type is selected from at least one of, Generation Units, Capacitor Banks, Reactor Banks, and Static VAR Systems.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein a megavolt-amp-reactive (MVAR) power reserve dashboard is provided that is automatically calculated based on the selected geographic area.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein an injection/absorption reactive reserve is calculated based on rules selected from, generation units, capacitors banks, reactor banks, and static VAR systems.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the generation units considers only units that are not open or removed.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the injection reactive reserve is calculated by the formula Injection Reactive Reserve=MVAR MAX−

MVAR Out and the absorption reactive reserve is calculated by the formula Absorption Reactive Reserve=MVAR Out−

MVAR Min where MVAR MAX is the maximum MVAR and MVAR Out is the MVAR output and MVAR Min is the minimum MVAR for the power system network elements within the selected geographic areas.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the capacitor banks only consider capacitor banks that are not removed from the power system.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the injection reactive reserve is a summation of nominal MVAR of capacitor banks that are open or disconnected.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the absorption reactive reserve is a summation of nominal MVAR of capacitor banks that are closed.

21. The method of claim 15, wherein the reactor banks consider reactors that are not removed from the power system.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the injection reactive reserve is a summation of nominal MVAR of capacitor banks s that are closed.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the absorption reactive reserve is a summation of nominal MVAR of capacitor banks s that are open or disconnected.

24. The method of claim 15, wherein the static VAR systems consider only Static VAR Systems that are not open or removed from the system.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the injection reactive reserve is calculated by the formula Injection Reactive Reserve=MVAR MAX−

MVAR Out and the absorption reactive reserve is calculated by the formula Absorption Reactive Reserve=MVAR Out−

MVAR where MVAR MAX is the maximum MVAR and MVAR Out is the MVAR output and MVAR Min is the minimum MVAR for the power system network elements within the selected geographic areas.

26. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

providing a stacked bar chart for detailed information about the MVARs availability on a per-station basis and on a per-device-type associated with the station basis.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein a height of a bar above a horizontal axis represents an amount of MVARs available to add into the system from a station.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein a height of the bar below a horizontal axis represents an amount of MVARs available to remove from a system at the station.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein for each station the amount of MVARs that can be injected or absorbed is shown below the chart.

30. The method of claim 29, wherein the chart is sorted from the station with the most available injection to the station with the least available injection.

31. The method of claim 30, further comprising:

clicking on the stacked bar chart to cause a corresponding substation'"'"'s one-line display to be called into the dashboard area.

32. The method of claim 31, further comprising:

displaying a three-dimensional view of the MVARs by applying the positive and negative reactive reserves toolbar buttons.

33. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

saving the selected geographic area in a reserves tab in the control panel that can be recalled for future use.

34. The method of claim 33, wherein when the selected geographic area in the reserves tab is recalled it is automatically restored to a state when it was saved and MVAR reserves are updated throughout the power system by applying the most recent real-time values.