Proactive Management of the Future Grid

The energy management system (EMS) at utility control centers collects real-time measurements to monitor current grid conditions. The EMS is also a suite of analytics that synthesizes these measurements to provide the grid operator with information to identify current problems and potential future problems. With evolving grid influences, such as growth of variable renewable generation resources, distributed generation, microgrids, demand response (DR), and customer engagement programs, managing the grid is becoming more challenging. Concurrently, however, there are nascent new technologies and advances in grid management schemes that will improve the ability to manage the future grid operations. These technologies include new subsecond synchrophasor measurements and analytics, advances in highperformance computing, visualization platforms, digital relays, cloud computing, and so on. Advances in grid management schemes include adding more intelligence at the substation and distribution systems, as well as microgrids and wide-area monitoring systems. One key initiative is to develop a predict-and-mitigate paradigm enabling anticipatory vision and timely decisions to mitigate potential problems before they spread to the rest of the grid. The word “proactive”means “to act now in anticipation of future problems.”Proactive grid management opportunities and solutions are described in this paper.