Improvement in quality of service through an alternative automation system design

Traditionally control of electrical power networks has been a centralized, top down system approach. Whilst the wider span of control offered by the centralised approach provides the Quality of Service, and the full situational awareness to make informed decisions to manage load flows, it is less responsive as the system grows and becomes more complicated. With the introduction of renewable energy resources, putting more intelligence at the plant levels allows more local decisions which need to be taken in faster time. A decentralised approach offers the ability to make local decisions in a fast time frame, but does not effectively support functions such as self-healing, and the Voltage and VAr control. An area based approach is considered whereby the network is divided into smaller regions, allowing decision making and control to be closer to the plant, whilst retaining the benefits of a wider system view.