Overview

AltaLink’s Strategic Technology Roadmap recognized synchrophasor technology as offering benefits in situational awareness, disaster recovery and system restoration. To assess the value in progressing further with synchrophasor technology, AltaLink sought a utility-wide perspective on actions required and benefits to be derived from increased deployment of synchrophasor technology and associated applications. PSC was engaged to develop a Phasor Measurement Technology Roadmap recommending a path for AltaLink to follow to take advantage of opportunities available to use synchrophasor information to enhance planning, control and operation of the power system in AltaLink’s service territory.

Project Outline

PSC’s approach to this assignment was to form a small team drawing on international expertise in power systems analysis and phasor measurement technology deployment, led by a locally based project manager with considerable understanding of the client’s network and organization. The project started out with a kick off meeting to introduce the roadmap project to the participants, set expectations for their involvement and confirm the scope of the roadmap development. The kick off meeting was followed up with an extensive series of interviews involving stakeholders and subject matter experts both from within AltaLink and external to AltaLink using teleconferencing and face to face meetings. PSC also engaged with a range of industry technology vendors as part of the assessment to ensure that all available functionality was considered when developing the road map. The roadmap document was drafted by PSC and following reviews by the client participants was presented in a meeting with senior AltaLink managers.

Outcome

The Phasor Measurement Technology Roadmap was developed identifying:

• industry trends in adoption of phasor measurement units (PMUs) and use of PMU data, with a focus on trends within the Western Interconnection;
• the current state of AltaLink’s PMU infrastructure deployment;
• a proposed future state for AltaLink’s PMU infrastructure deployment;
• a means of moving from the current state to the proposed future state via a progressive series of pilot projects; and
• key benefits accrued to AltaLink by following the roadmap.

The roadmap report was successfully delivered with a final presentation to senior managers at AltaLink.

PSC Services

Services provided included:

• Specialist power systems analysis expertise
• Specialist PMU technology deployment expertise
• Investigation of current state of client’s PMU infrastructure
• Analysis of industry trends and practices
• Proposal of a future state for synchrophasor technology deployment at AltaLink
• Outline of a plan for pilot projects to introduce synchrophasor data and applications into AltaLink’s operational and non-operational working environments