Protection & Controls analytics for a reliable grid

• Published in: Annual Conference for Protective Relay Engineers : [proceedings] pp. 1 - 10
• Main Authors: Aziz, Qasim, Sonde, Gautam
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.04.2016
• Subjects: Industries; Maintenance engineering; Microprocessors; Protective relaying; Reliability; Solids
• ISSN: 2474-9753
• DOI: 10.1109/CPRE.2016.7914906

This paper discusses the need and the process of developing Protection & Control (P&C) analytics for maintaining system reliability of transmission grid. This paper focuses on presenting methodology around development of analytics for transmission protective relaying. It discusses use of analytics to assess system risk associated with protective relays based on asset health and system impact. It describes application of P&C analytics in mitigating system risks associated with maintaining a diverse population of protective relays. Opportunity to use P&C analytics as a building block for development of a future Asset Health Center is addressed in this paper as well. Discussions surrounding usage of analytics as technical basis for development of Capital and O&M budgets are also part of this paper. P&C analytics discussed in this paper were developed around protective relay assets owned and/or maintained by CenterPoint Energy, an electric transmission provider in the Greater Houston Area. CenterPoint Energy's protective relay fleet comprises of mostly electromechanical and microprocessor based relays, with a small number of solid state relays. For the purpose of development of P&C analytics, various health assessment parameters were analyzed and weightages assigned including Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF), misoperations, vintage and relay type. System impact due to failure/malfunction of protective relays is calculated based on station bus configuration, protection scheme and other factors including electrical load at risk, voltage level, station ownership and maintenance repair times. System risk is calculated based on probability of failure and system impact. The methodology and information related to relay life cycles used for development of P&C analytics is based on discussions held at Electric Power Research Institute's (EPRI) member utilities platform and contribution from CenterPoint Energy's subject matter experts. This paper also describes the use of data integration methodology, smart algorithms and application of latest Information Technology (IT) capabilities as building blocks used during the development of transmission P&C analytics.