The non-feasibility of applying optimal control theory to generator excitation control is presented. The reasons for the non-feasibility: (1) optimal control is based on linear feed back error control of full state variables. Except terminal voltage error feedback the feed backs of errors of other variables provide negative impact on excitation control. (2) For the preference of the control strength of each variable enormous different weighting factors have to be used, that is contradictory with the requirement of system dynamic performance. (3) Optimal design of the gain of the controller requires correct selection of a set of optimal weighting factors which is a complex， trial and error process, and no clear guidance.

Index terms: Power System Stability, Generator Excitation Control, Optimal Control Theory, Power System Stabilizer, Feedback Error Control, Control System Compensation

Leidos Engineering will discuss the challenges associated with the integration of high penetration of intermittent and inverter based generation. Conventional way of planning for new generation is not sufficient when system has high volume of variable and inverter based generation such as wind and solar power plants. This presentation will explain the key elements to consider in studying intermittent and inverter based generation and the overall impacts of high penetration of intermittent generation in system planning and operation. Evolving study procedures and technical standards, industry developments and new concepts will be covered along with a discussion on common concerns, evaluation strategies and mitigation options.

The Internet of Things (IoT) world needs to consider and understand core connectivity considerations, options and opportunities. Plans and roadmaps must include connectivity and security requirements with the associated activities to fully assess costs and assure IoT benefits are realized. Steven shares updates and perspectives from several standards and communication communities. Steven will also share the draft NIST Cloud Carrier Framework that clarifies where the carrier and communication activities fit into the cloud and IoT eco-system. The models and definitions help clarify the connectivity options including Software Defined Networks (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) that will be impacting connectivity provisioning for the foreseeable future. Networks and communication are key considerations that enable IoT solutions to be “ready for primetime”. The cloud computing IoT and networking opportunities continue to mature and evolve as the business and standards catches up with the technology. Connectivity are core considerations residing on the critical path for IoT.

An overview of North America and Ontario’s changing supply mix, the operational challenges it presents and the prospects of emerging technologies to be applied to those challenges.

Utilities have different approaches to prepare a proper development plan for their system. Various factors such as the amount of load growth, addition of new generations, the need for system reinforcement can play a role in defining these development plan. One systematic approach, that can help utilities to make an informed decision, is to use probabilistic based reliability analysis technique.

The reliability analysis is based on evaluating the Expected Un-served Energy (E.U.E.) at the major load delivery buses. The first phase of the proposed method is the data repository phase in which the reliability data of each piece of equipment, specifically failure rate and outage duration, is collected in a form of data base. The second phase is to perform statistical reliability calculations. The reliability calculations are based on the deterministic reliability analysis (i.e. contingency analysis) and the simulation output would be the E.U.E. in MWh/yr. Although PSS®E can be used as the main tool to conduct the simulation for the purpose of this study on the system level, the reliability indices of HVDC systems can be evaluated using RELIAB (a Teshmont’s in-house reliability software tool). The output of RELIAB can be utilized as part of PSS®E simulations on the system level. The last phase of the method is to introduce potential alternatives for development plans and perform cost benefit analysis for each alternative and use the calculated E.U.E. for the corresponding alternative to come up with the best asset allocation option for the system under study.

The probabilistic based reliability analysis method has been applied to Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro’s (NLH) Interconnected Island System (IIS) to evaluate the impact of the two new HVDC systems with retirement of aging generating units and other proposed transmission reinforcements/upgrades from the system reliability point of view.

During the last century, Electrical Power and Energy has taken a larger place in our every day life and our dependency toward electricity has increased steadily. It is the keystone of the digital age. Population growth and economic development have required electricity generation, transmission and distribution systems to adapt to the ever-increased usages of electricity. The way that electricity was produced and used in the 20th century is facing new environmental, societal pressures and technical challenges. Today, the electrical industry, as in the society in general, is evolving faster and many stakeholders are questioning what is coming down the road for the electrical industry.

This presentation draws a picture of the electrical industry today and describes the existing and coming challenges. From these observations it proposes to the attendees some ideas to think about how to prepare for the electrical industry of the future.

Substation assets represent critical utility infrastructure that must be proactively managed by the utility in a manner that allows for reliability and risk impacts to be minimized. A risk-based asset management (“AM”) approach can be implemented, allowing the utility to identify substation assets that must be replaced based upon the lowest life-cycle costs, thereby allowing the utility to balance the risk of in-service failures against the capital expenditures required to mitigate these risks.

Successful implementation of this approach begins with the introduction of asset management standards, such as ISO 5500x, which allows enables utilities to (i) introduce AM policies and strategies, (ii) collect substation data for the purposes of risk assessment and planning and (iii) introduce continuous improvement procedures including continual monitoring, correction action and management review.

Leidos Canada will undertake a review of a maturing solar photovoltaic (PV) industry, which is presently transitioning from a novel upstart into a discernable contributor to the energy supply mix and a new player at the grid planning table. Several changes are either underway or are needed for continued growth, and we examine these from the perspective of engineers who have been immersed in the Ontario industry since its inception and also extensively involved in solar projects across North America.

The talk starts by examining technology trends and where the opportunities are to reduce costs of PV systems. Though PV material cost and efficiency has been the historic target of much attention, the modules are a diminishing part of the full system costs, and many of the most promising and realistic avenues of optimization relate to the system, including optimal operation of existing plants. The talk will include a quick review of the policies that have enabled the growth, highlighting strengths and weaknesses, and price data in contrast to electricity prices and markets. As feed-in tariff (FIT) prices decrease and net-metering potentially push to slimmer project margins, more value needs to be placed on good engineering and lowering performance uncertainty. We will look at how today’s utility-scale projects are achieving low cost points and what the challenges are for long term operation. Moving forward, Ontario’s advantages, such as smart meters, provincially integrated grid, early adoption of FIT and time-of-use pricing, puts it in good position to build an efficient modern grid that includes substantive distributed generation, but several challenges remain. Many regions of the grid are transmission constrained, either from the point of view of growing loads or from transmission/distribution capacity connection rules for solar generation, and so an evolution that enables smarter solar (smarter inverters, location and/or time specific generation, solar plus storage, grid interactive) will result in grid-friendly systems that support grid demand peaks and grid stability, and we can look to how these are developing here and in other jurisdictions.

Advances in computing technology have led to widely available workstations with large numbers of CPU cores. In addition, super-computing network capabilities are now readily available. This has create an opportunity to build a high performance communication fabric to enable simulation modules to trade information with very low latency. As a result, modelling a wind park with many machines can be achieved by simulation each machine on a separate CPU core, and retaining both detail and performance. This allows researcher to study controller interactions without compromise. In addition the inclusion of mechanical modelling tools as well will enable new studies of machine torsional interactions with the electrical system. Practical examples withe performance metrics will be shown.

C. Concordia once said “Fast excitation and its control opened up a whole new direction for power system stability”. The development of excitation control has showed significant impacts on stability not only for significantly improving angle and voltage stability but it also leads the transition from the classical stability theory to the modern stability theory.

This presentation will include:

• A new concept which demonstrates that excitation control affects stability by significantly reducing the connection length between generators in the system therefore makes the system connection tighter and stronger.
• The gain of AVR is a key factor to understand the whole issue of stability and excitation control, e.g. PID control and PSS.
• Synchronous and damping torques are the base to develop Power System Stabilizer.
• Our physical model tests demonstrated that steady state stability power limit is able to reach the maximum possible value, which corresponds to Xd=0 with high gain AVR and PSS. A field test also demonstrated that the transient stability power limit determined by the small disturbance stability of the post-contingency could be increased by 50%.
• Our Entire Process Excitation Intelligent Controller based on the Five Stages Concept showed significant improvement of the first swing transient stability.
• Excitation control is the first choice for solving the stability problem, which includes: Static Exciter, High Ceiling Voltage, High Gain AVR, the Entire Process Controller, Line Drop Compensation, the Coordinate Over-Excitation Limiter and Protection, and the Second Voltage Control. Large improvements exist if all the above measures would have been applied.
• Analysis and coordinate design of excitation control in large power systems lead to development of the Complex Frequency Domain Method that enables us to understand the fundamental dynamic properties of power system which we could not do before.
• Mode Machine Association Property will be presented in this presentation which is a fundamental dynamic property of power systems and a production of system observability and controllability.
• A PSS coordinating design method of phase compensation for a wide frequency band and the Mode Machine Association Property will be applied, as a result the dynamic performance of system shows sound adaptability.

li>Based on the Mode Machine Association Property, a reduced order method will be presented.

This presentation will talk about the emerging utility trends over the next 10 years, which can be broken into three categories. The first category is a completely changed customer environment that consists of smart appliances, new loads and more sophisticated control technologies. The second is an ever smarter grid that can integrate distributed sources of sustainable energy. And the third is the enabling regulatory and market constructs that are creating the environment for a fundamentally different set of business models than the industry has enjoyed over the last century.

Given the industry’s 10-year landscape and the technology advances shaping its future, this presentation will further discuss three critical challenges that drive a set of strategic imperatives for the industry, including the role of the energy integrator, whereby utility operations will have to become more integrated with the other parts of the utility business.

It is widely known in many industries that testing the entire system, as installed is the best way to ensure performance to design and to and system availability. This presentation, based on work in several Standards committees included in IEEE 1547 and IEEE power systems relaying committee, will provide an overview of key steps in commissioning substation protection systems.

We will highlight the value Provided through best practices in system testing

• Test the entire system as installed
• Providing load to ensure sensors have enough current to operate
• Avoid Risk by not having to use customer load
• Test the entire protection

Considerations when choosing test method on transformers:

• Potential damage to transformers from load imbalance
• Derived load is highly reactive, will not simulate actual conditions for more complex relays
• Will not properly test Distance, Directional Overcurrent, Power Directional, or other relays that use current and voltage to operate properly
• Requires multiple relay settings be manually changed or overridden to “force” the system to test the protection relays.
• Metering may need to be bypassed to perform test
• Many protection relay faults not likely to be discover

In addition to the precision, using load banks for grid emulation to augment testing practices improves your ability to maintain schedule and keep costs under control. By proper contingency planning and having Specialty Equipment available testing can be accomplished when there is no little load available, or even one the grid connection is not present.

Ensure that the test conditions accurately predict system operation

• Using load banks to increase the current flow on the circuit ensures that the minimum current requirements for CT’s of the protective relays and phase angle meters
• Load banks provide 100% resistive load and make in-servicing (phase angle comparison) the equipment straightforward due to no inductive or capacitive factors
• Using customer load entails risk and inability to control conditions
• Not just what customer has at the time of test
• Testing Entire System is preferred to Individual Component Testing

Distributed intelligence is the direction the grid will go, and it will amplify the benefits of smart grid technologies. In this presentation we will start by discussing some of the challenges associated with centralized intelligence in future grids and the drivers behind distributed Intelligence. We will then identify some of the essential elements to build an electric grid with distributed intelligence followed by describing a novel wireless sensor network architecture with distributed intelligence. We will finally discuss some future applications that we envision in a smart grid.

The use of PQ monitoring data to perform Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) on distribution lines was the primary goal of Hydro-Quebec’s (HQ) Maintenance and Investigation of LinES (MILES) project, started in 2001 at the IREQ research institute. By analyzing the benefits of deploying PQ measurements along the feeders, the research team discovered enormous potential in the use of voltage sag measurements for fault location. This fueled the development of the Voltage Drop Fault Location technique (VDFL). This advanced fault location technique uses voltage triangulation to limit the number of fault locations and an advanced fuzzy logic algorithm to identify the cause of faults. Those characteristics are essential to find non-persistent faults, which help to locate incipient equipment failure, improve vegetation control, avoid outages and enhance the overall quality of service. Migration from a corrective maintenance to a just-in-time maintenance is therefore possible. Several power quality analyzers have been deployed on feeders to validate the concept and based on excellent field results, a prototype software application implementing this technique, was developed and the results are now available to technical staff through a WEB interface. For example, following MILES use, one of the worst feeders of HQ, counting for an average of 180 outages annually, was greatly improved with a reduction of its outages frequency by 51% and its SAIDI index by 61%. $1M of unnecessary investment has also been avoided on this feeder. Fifteen (15) feeders are now monitored for fault location and CBM practice with the MILES application. In 2016-2017, 25 additional HQ feeders are planned to be monitored and three other Canadian utilities will participate in this project with many more feeders. In the last year, an effort to reduce the cost of deployment has been successful and HQ is now integrating outage location into the MILES application.

Conventional and traditional electric power systems were designed to deliver power using alternating current (AC) via high voltage transmission lines and lower voltage distribution networks. Reconsideration and rethinking of this traditional approach to power generation and distribution is the result of emerging generation of direct current (DC) based equipment and increasing reliance on distributed renewable generation capabilities. Increasingly, modern loads including computers, fluorescent lighting systems, variable speed drives and many other household/business assets require DC supply. Such DC devices, however, require conversion of the AC main power supply to DC which involves the use of solid state converters (rectifiers) and with resultant power losses. In addition, it is expected that further energy losses will be encountered when converting the energy supplied renewable DC sources, such as roof top photovoltaic (PV), energy storage batteries and other distributed DC generation, into AC power prior delivery to the grid.

In this roundtable discussion, the concept of DC microgrid will be outlined along with details related to a new project (The DC Village) at the Kortright Centre, Vaughn, Ontario. Design aspects and technical challenges will be presented from both academic perspective (Mohawk College) and industry point of view (Siemens Canada).

Globalization and the advancement of technology affected the industry by enlarging the erudite users, minimizing the product cycles, and enlarging the labor costs as well as the instability in the input prices. Some expenses of firms appear in order to prevent non-conformance and defects from incurring which called prevention cost. Costs correlated with prevention cost differ, which might be related to the quality system designing and the cost of training as well. To ensure quality of services provided, and products by assessing the level of achieving the requirements of the end users, some cost will be occurred accordingly, which called appraisal cost. That cost will include the testing materials, production line as well as the on-production materials. Some other cost called Internal failure cost that occurs because of failure to achieve the requirements of the end users. This is the cost, which occurs because of non-achievement of desired quality, i.e. wastes and damage. Different steps are followed in order to apply the quality cost. Cost of quality’s perception has become a great management tool to measure the quality performance. All firms have believed cost of quality perception. To evaluate the results for the firm’s effort we need to be acknowledgeable about quality. It is not easy to evaluate the best quality programs. Percentage of success of any CoQ method will be based on needs and demands of firms. The selected quality costing method must be according to the company’s situation, and should focus on the continuous improvements. This must be appropriate to all divisions, and focus upon a team approach. To make a quality costing decision, we should deliberate so many issues. Several advantages will appear by shrinking cost. The most important benefit obtained by applying CoQ in any organization would be achieving the loyalty of its customers. Nevertheless, Immunity to change is an obstacle associations should overcome with aggregate value administration. Representatives and decision makers may not accept updates in regular business drills. Holders and executives must have the ability to reveal why the downright value administration will make an improved work rather than heretofore. Decision makers and managers should recognize the concept of CoQ realistically by emphasizing education and case studies for example. Accordingly, managers can obtain the benefits of the approach as well as raise the ability of the firm to apply a CoQ system in an effective way and to minimize waste.

Modern history is full of breakthroughs in technology, all striving to increase productivity and efficiency. What are the elements that should be taken into consideration in the design and implementation of modern automation and technology systems in a control room? Both industry and international standards are now demanding that Human Factors be considered as part of the design of control rooms to maximize efficiency and minimize the potential of human error which can lead to downtime and a loss of profit as a result of interruptions in production. As the current workforce ages and the younger generation matures, this is also becoming a key element when planning a control room/operations centre. New standards are helping to address some of these challenges that are facing the utility industry today. With an increased focus on the operator, and especially their interaction with technology, an intelligent and ergonomic workspace can both mitigate risk and optimize production. Optimization is money. We will examine how to analyze and implement innovative control room planning to maximize efficient operations and minimize risks that can impact overall production and profit.

Non-destructive evaluation of in-field wood poles used in telecom and utilities overhead lines remains as a key issue for network managers. If existing tools all have their own methods to give an estimation of the residual status of individual poles, the goals are usually the same:

• Security: Keep only safe poles in the networks
• Costs: Change poles as infrequently as possible
• Productivity: Inspect as many poles as possible / day

For many years, CBT has been working on the topic to achieve these goals. If the tool – called Polux – is considered as the reference on the market, the engineers have developed a newer generation which takes into account complementary parameters to strengthen its performances and ease its practical use in the field (such as improved ergonomics).

This paper presents the development of the latest generation of the Polux device including the description of the new parameters taken into account for pole evaluation resulting in improved reliability.

End-winding vibration issues have been an ever increasing subject of interest in the industry, specifically in the turbo-electric generator side of power generation. An increasing number of major failures, due mostly to insulation breakdown, have been directly attributed to end-winding vibration. Although the usefulness of this monitoring technology has been proven many times over in turbo-electric generators, a definite interest in the use of fiber optic technology has been observed in hydro generation, as well as in the mining industry, for SAG (Semi-Autogenous Grinding) and ball mills. The case study included in this paper will show quite clearly how this technology can be very effective in monitoring, detecting and identifying problems emanating from electromagnetic stresses exerted on the end-winding structure of hydroelectric generators. It will show how proper trending and analysis capabilities and early detection of end-winding vibration issues on hydroelectric generators can be achieved. This leads to the prevention of major and costly failures and allows for the lifetime of a stator core and winding to be extended. The intervention to improve the stiffness of a specific end-winding, covered in this paper, was deemed a success and demonstrated that such action could delay or stop a major failure mechanism. It also showed that end-winding vibration data does not always paint the entire picture as the vibration observed may not be the highest vibration level recorded on a unit. The importance of installing the correct number of sensors, along with the proper location of said sensors, is critical in order to provide accurate and pertinent data and therefore provide a better assessment of the end-winding structure integrity.

This utility decided to install an online monitoring system on their 18 MW hydroelectric generator, in order to closely monitor air gap and relative shaft displacement. The monitoring system was installed to closely evaluate the performance of this newly commissioned generator. Dynamic behavior tests were performed in order to produce a comprehensive analysis report. Tests were performed while the Unit was under most operating conditions. With the use of the monitoring software, it was possible to determine the rotor and stator shapes, as well as their relative position. In addition, relative shaft displacement probes were used to analyze the Unit’s vibratory behavior. This paper will show that the correlation between air gap and relative vibration is very valuable to correctly identify the source of specific vibration behavior. No other tool is capable of providing the information necessary to ensure the safe operation of a generator in regards to generator/vibration interaction. It is also very important to have access to trained personnel when analyzing the data because, more often than not, as the observed discrepancies are incorrectly identified, corrective actions are futile and in some cases counterproductive. In many instances, the source of the problem is not always easily detectable and quite often is the result of multiple problems. In this particular case, the monitoring system, more specifically the air gap data, properly identified a vibratory problem as being caused by an unevenly shaped rotor, not an electromagnetic issue. The solution in this case would have been to improve the rotor circularity, in order to improve the magnetic field created upon excitation. Without the air gap data, the proposed solution would have been to balance the Unit. It is critical to be able to make these assessments during the warranty period so that the OEM can execute corrective actions and ensure the proper working condition of the Unit for its expected life duration.

Present solutions for performing FLISR are not completely satisfactory. The new approach solves the obstacles typically found in DA applications, as communication or device failures, and keeps the grid operator updated in case the process has to be performed manually.