Measurements for adaptive protection and control in a competitive market

In a competitive market where power generating companies compete for loads with open access to the transmission network, the protection and control techniques in use take on a special significance. In this new environment there are two issues which are related to the uses of real time measurements. First, there is the possibility that the pre-set control and protection decisions do not necessarily perform optimally when the system state changes, in particular as the generation pattern changes significantly. The real time measurements can be of great help in adapting the protection and control strategies to the new environment. The second issue deals with the problem of identifying what control processes are at work on the network at any given time. It would be interesting to investigate if precise measurements made on the network in real time could provide definitive assessment of what is happening on the network. The paper expands on the two ideas described above.