Designing the next generation real-time control, communications and communication system for the electricity infrastructure

Summary form only given. The power grid is not only a network interconnecting generators and loads through a transmission and distribution system, but is overlaid with a communication and control system that enables economic and secure operation. This multi-layered infrastructure has evolved over many decades utilizing new technologies as they have appeared. This evolution has been slow and incremental, as the operation of the power system consisting of vertically integrated utilities has, until recently, changed very little. For example, the monitoring of the grid is still done by SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems whose hierarchical design for polling data was appropriate for vertically integrated utilities and whose speed in seconds still reflects the conceptual design of the 1960s. The thesis of this panel presentation is that the changing environment, in both policy and technology, requires a new look at the operation of the power grid and a complete redesign of the control, communication and computation infrastructure.