Integrated, Agent-Based, Real-time Control Systems for Transmission and Distribution Networks
Paul Hines, Stephanie Hamilton, Robert Yinger, Charles Vartanian, A. Feliachi, Karl Schoder · 2007
Centralized control systems can be easier to design and generally conform to utility industry practices, but have disadvantages in terms of actuation speed and limited robustness to failures. Interoperability among devices and across systems will facilitate decentralized decision-making systems that can react quickly to local problems and, when well designed, are more resilient to failures. This paper describes a conceptual design for the integrated, real-time control of both transmission and distribution systems. The design uses intelligent control agents located at nodes in the grid. To illustrate the utility of decentralized, agent-based, real-time control, we describe two agent-based control algorithms, one designed to mitigate the effects of cascading failures in the transmission system and the other designed to improve distribution circuit performance. After describing the proposed design concepts and presenting some example results, we describe some information technology advances that have the potential to enable an interoperable network of software agents with real-time control capabilities for both transmission and distribution.