Circuit breaker duty monitoring from the control center

This paper describes a breaker monitoring method and network control to avoid overstressing breakers during faults. The method is proposed as a control center application. Specifically, utilizing the real time model of the system, the expected fault current distribution is computed for each breaker. In case that faults are identified that will exceed the ratings of the breaker, the optimal reconfiguration and/or on-line generation is sought that eliminates this possibility. Many times the optimal reconfiguration may not be desirable or economical, in which case visualizations of the possible breaker overstress are generated and presented to the operator. In this case, it is expected that the operator may seek solutions based on his/her experience and knowledge of the system.