Agent Applications and their Future in the Power Industry

Advanced agent technology provides significant potential contribution to distributed intelligent controls. Several agent based applications have been developed in the area of power systems. Although these applications have shown some very good results, agent technology has yet to make a significant impact in the power system area. Many agent based applications are not practical due to limitations such as - computation speed, communication bandwidth, unstable realtime operation, and problem complexity. In this paper strength, weaknesses, threats and opportunities of the existing agent framework in power systems are discussed. Attempts are been made to envisage the future framework for the agent based applications in this area. Need for mutual collaboration among experts and a paradigm for integrated approach for agent application are stressed. Examples of incremental success stories at the Center for Advanced Power Systems of Florida State University are used to highlight the concepts of this paper.