This topic addresses an important area of research for the distribution system of the future - making the system smarter as a means to improve reliability. The high standard of living enjoyed by Americans is very dependent on the reliability of the power system. Already, we lose on the order of $120B per year as a result of power disturbances and outages. The importance of reliability continues to increase as our society becomes more and more automated and dependent on the automation.

Automated approaches for identifying and locating problems will be developed as a result of this project and will represent a major advancement over existing methods of preventive maintenance and reactive repairs. New technologies show great promise for predicting, or anticipating, failures before they happen. Deteriorating components often produce early warning signs, enabling utility companies to take action before catastrophic failures occur. Under the sponsorship of the Electric Power Research Institute and its member utilities, Texas A&M University researchers have conducted eight years of research in fault anticipation. They have identified early warning signs, or precursors, of impending component failures. They also have developed means for detecting operational problems with line apparatus. Information from this system also provides information that can help utilities locate faults and impending faults. Multiple utility companies have participated in the work that has led to this new technology and want to see it demonstrated and evaluated in pilot studies under actual operational conditions.

Utilities also want to take advantage of their existing and planned monitoring infrastructures (which may include smart relays, fault recorders, power quality monitors, reclosers, etc.) to locate faults and identify equipment problems. This has been a problem because the systems are not integrated and data formats are not compatible. This creates a systemic barrier to exploiting this data for developing new, innovative methods for fault diagnosis and location. Providing a generically accessible library to an assortment of these measurements would open the door to the advent of many new techniques.

This project has two objectives: evaluation of fault anticipation technology and the creation of a standardized library of events standardized library of events that will foster future innovation. This will benefit American society greatly, by preventing many faults and enabling more rapid restoration of service when faults do occur, and by providing the foundation for creating additional innovative approaches in these areas in the future.

The project will achieve these objectives by combining the capabilities of EPRI, Texas A&M, Power Solutions, and a long list of utility partners. EPRI will lead and coordinate the overall project. EPRI will spearhead the development of a national database repository of power system events, with contributions from a wide range of utilities with various monitoring system infrastructures. Utility partners include the following (this list could grow as the project gets under way):

• Oncor Electric Delivery (formerly TXU Electric Delivery)
• Southern Company
• American Electric Power (AEP)
• Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
• Consolidated Edison Company of New York
• San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E)
• United Illuminating (UI)
• Progress Energy Carolinas

These utility partners will help provide direction on the database structure and will be test beds for innovations developed using the disturbance library. The database will be publicly available and will enable future research in power system monitoring and control. Creation of this repository will include the design of standardized formats for storage of event waveforms and for storage of information about the topology and characteristics of the power systems on which they occurred. It also will include the creation of a web-based interface that facilitates access to the database.

Power Solutions specializes in implementing the results of electric power system research into field-hardened systems for use by utilities. In this project, Texas A&M and Power Solutions will work together to develop a system for applying Texas A&M's fault anticipation technology. TXU Electric Delivery will lead a group of utilities that will guide the system development and perform pilot-system installations and evaluations. TXU and Southern Company will host pilot installations in which they install these systems and evaluate the costs and benefits to be realized in actual operational settings. Data from these test systems will also become part of the disturbance library.