Erkios: end-to-end field-based RAS testing for enhanced blackout protection

Luis Esteban Oleas Chávez

Electric power grids worldwide are becoming increasingly stressed each year due to such factors as inadequate transmission growth, large numbers of retiring system operators and engineers, increased integration of renewable energy sources that have very different physics properties (they do not provide reactive power), and the threat of cyber-attack. Traditional power control features continual adjustments based on sensor data and power models, the former which are typically incomplete in number and the latter generally lacking in accuracy. There are thus situations that cause blackouts but are beyond the scope of traditional control mechanisms and even traditional protection, which focuses on two ends of a bus. Remedial Action Schemes (RAS), which are sometimes called Special Protection Schemes (SPS) or by the parent category, System Integrity Protection Schemes (SIPS), are a last-resort measure for such situations. These take inputs from many sensors at multiple locations, and often have logic distributed in many places. However, they are tested for correctness when installed, but then generally infrequently and incompletely tested, at best, afterwards. The crucial issue is this: when v they are needed to prevent a blackout 5-10 or more years later, will they actually work as planned? There are no solutions from industry or the research literature that deal with this in a comprehensive, end-to-end basis. To fill this gap, we have developed the novel ERKIOS framework for end-to-end testing of the components along the path of RAS schemes, from sensor to actuator and everything inbetween. ERKIOS provides capabilities to test individual components, from rerouting commands to actuators to disable them, to injecting analog signals into a sensor instead of the usual Potential Transformer/Current Transformer (PT/CT) inputs, to other elements between. These can be tested individually or as an end-to-end chain. ERKIOS also provides three different mechanisms for dealing with inexactness of a resulting signal, which may have undergone translation from digital to analog and then back, and in doing so has lost precision.

Erkios: end-to-end field-based RAS testing for enhanced blackout protection

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