An Advanced Alarm Processor using Two-level Processing Structure

With the growth of system complexity, dispatchers are often overwhelmed with system alarms. This situation requires that an alarm processor be developed to help the dispatchers recognize the nature of the disturbances. Many existing alarm processors lack the ability to analyze complex events efficiently within a time constraint. This paper presents a new processing structure for the alarm processor. The proposed alarm processor is implemented both at the substation automation system (SAS) and the energy management system (EMS) level. The SAS level is able to obtain more accurate analysis of substation-wide events using extra substation measurement data that are not available at the EMS level. The EMS level correlates events from different substations to generate system-wide scenarios. Test results show the effectiveness and correctness of the proposed alarm processor.