How reliability performance monitoring and standards compliance will be achieved in real time.
Carlos Martinez is research lead at the Electric Power Group/Consortium for Electric Reliability Technology Solutions (CERTS). Robert Cummings is director of event analysis and information exchange at the North American Electric Reliability Council. Philip Overholt is program manager for the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Joseph Eto is project manager at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory/CERTS. Contact Martinez at martinez@ electricpowergroup.com.
The North American electric power grid has suffered several significant outages in recent years. These events and other incidents around the world spotlight the need for enforceable grid-reliability standards, wide-area visibility of the health of the power system, and real-time monitoring of grid-reliability performance to prevent blackouts. Effective reliability management requires real-time tools and technologies that can detect standards violations so that timely corrective or preventive actions can be taken.
The North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), formed and managed by the power industry, has overseen North American electricity system reliability since 1967. But until recently, NERC had neither the authority to enforce compliance with reliability standards nor the tools to monitor reliability in real time.