Anjan Bose , Robin Podmore, and Udo Spanel
The trainig of power grid operators took a major leap forward with the introduction of operator training simulators (OTSs) in the late 1970s, but the demands on OTS-based training have increased with the ongoing transformation of the grid. Today, blackouts occur as a result of outages that typically impact multiple transmission operators, multiple balancing authorities (BAs), and multiple reliability coordinators (RCs). Therefore, this article focuses on training that involves teams of system operators who work cooperatively in neighboring control centers. With more generation resources being placed in the distribution systems, these coordinating operators to be trained are in the distribution control centers. Blackouts used to be associated mainly with instability, uncontrolled separation, and cascading outages. This situation is changing, with blackouts now also occurring due to systemic emergencies, such as firestorms, extreme weather, hurricanes, and cyberattacks.
Avoiding Blackouts in the Evolving Power Grid
From the very early days, as soon as more than one generator was interconnected to supply customer loads, the role of a system operator/dispatcher had to be created as being distinct from a generator operator and a substation operator. For decades, the training of these different operators was conducted on the job by having the newer operators learn from the more seasoned. The system operator supervised and controlled the system from a control center that changed over time to incorporate better measurement and communication technologies. By the 1960s, these control centers were digitalized by using computers at the control centers and digital communications to move measurement and control signals. In the 1970s, the computer power at the control centers was increased enough to conduct more processing of the measurements to provide applications such as state estimation and contingency analysis. These sophisticated control centers came to be known as energy management systems (EMSs). In the past half century, these EMSs have become even more sophisticated in their applications, and a large grid may require several hierarchical levels of EMS, each of which is run by several operators requiring different levels of training.
With the availability of powerful computers in the 1970s, the idea of training people on simulators started spreading through various industries. The first OTS for training grid operators was unveiled by Control Data, in 1977, just before the New York City, NY, USA, blackout of 1977, which prompted Consolidated Edison, of New York, to install the first OTS for training. The use of OTSs for grid operator training is commonplace today, and the operator training process in every control center with an EMS includes some lessons on an OTS. Indeed, the grid codes of all large grids around the world mandate OTSbased training.
In North America, the standards pertaining to the training of operators for the bulk power system are specified by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC). The system operators who work for RCs, transmission operators (TOPs), and BAs must obtain and maintain NERC certificates by passing examinations in several areas of competency, as shown in Table 1.
NERC provides four different certificates that cover different combinations of these areas of competency: 1) reliability operator, 2) transmission operator, 3) balancing and interchange operator, and 4) balancing, interchange. and transmission operator. The NERC Standard on Operating Personnel Credentials (PER-003) describes the credentials needed for the system operators in the different control centers.
The NERC System Operator Certification Program is described in a program manual. The various topical areas of training and the number of continuing education hours (CEHs) needed in each area are described in this manual; so are the examinations for the NERC certificates. Each of the certificates requires 30 CEHs of simulation training; simulations include tabletop exercises, OTSs, emergency drills and practicing emergency procedures, restoration, black start, and other reliability-based scenarios.
The NERC Standard on Personnel Training (PER-005) further describes the training required for system operators. It stresses the need for a systematic approach to training and that the standards require a holistic training approach. It includes the need for using simulation training for training on certain topics, such as
R4. Each RC, BA, transmission operator, and TO that (1) has operational authority or control over Facilities with established Interconnection Reliability Operating Limits (IROLs), or (2) has established protection systems or operating guides to mitigate IROL violations, shall provide its system operators with emergency operations training using simulation technology such as a simulator, virtual technology, or other technology that replicates the operational behavior of the bulk electric system.
Compared to the United States, the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) is the counterpart of NERC in Europe. The European Union (EU) supports a single common electricity market. ENTSOE is responsible for the security of the interconnected power system at all time frames and therefore sets the system operation guidelines (SOGLs). After passing the EU Agency for Cooperation of Energy Regulators, the SOGL is included in the EU directives, which establish the guidelines on transmission system operation. These guidelines include the rules for the training and certification of system operator employees (Commission Regulation EU 2017/1485). The network code on electricity emergencies and restoration (Commission Regulation EU 2017/2196) sets the requirements to coordinate the system operation across the EU in emergency, blackout, and restoration states, which results in additional training requirements. The EU directives are passed to the EU member states, which, in turn, have to implement the requirements according to their individual national laws and regulations.
The training program, its development and performance, and the operator certification reside in the domain of each transmission system operator. Compared to NERC, there is no certification program in ENTSO-E. The directives mandate is at least to have the control center employees fully authorized to operate the power system in all system states. The guidelines and rules for training distinguish initial and ongoing training. The initial training focuses mainly on technical and organizational issues within the company. This training ends with a company internal certification process, which gives full authorization to the control center employee to operate the power system under regard. The guidelines stipulate that, during the initial training, candidates have to be supervised. The initial training is followed by ongoing training, which at least is lifetime learning.
The training must include
Besides the preceding requirements, training takes the different job positions within the control center, such as grid operation, power/frequency balancing, reactive power/voltage maintenance, and operational planning (day ahead and intraday), including system security coordination and SGU offshore platform operation, into account, ending in tailormade job-specific training programs.
While usually the training is performed as on-the-job training, the EU directives stipulate the integration of OTS training whenever it supports the quality of the training. Furthermore, joint training is required. Joint training covers, on an intercompany level, a control area of a TSO and the connected DSOs and SGUs. The inter-TSO training (across national borders) may include, but should not be limited to, joint training workshops and joint training simulator sessions.
The network code on electricity emergency and restoration forces the TSO to have emergency and restoration plans ready to operate the power system in abnormal system states. Furthermore, it is mandatory to harmonize these plans with the connected DSOs’ and SGUs’ plans. Here, common OTS training is recommended to verify the individual plans and their interaction. This results in the training of cross-control center coordination and communication.
The preceding requirements from NERC and ENTSOE are minimum requirements only, and there is the opportunity for the different power companies to design specific training programs that meet their particular needs. Local regions have devised their own ways to conduct joint training exercises to train for different regional issues and grid behavior. Also, it should be remembered that these grid codes are mainly written for the high-voltage portions of the grid, and the training for DSOs is often left to the best practices of the distribution utilities.
Simulation training became possible with the evolution of computation technologies, which made it possible to simulate the behavior of the power grid in real time. In the early decades, the largest power systems that could be simulated in real time had fewer than 100 buses, which meant that simulation of real power grids was not possible, so the training provided on these small simulators was for very generic procedural training and not for realistic scenarios on a real system. By 2000, the OTSs were big enough to simulate systems with thousands of buses with realistic scenarios; in fact, real emergencies could be replicated on the OTS to train the operators.
The real problem before simulation training was available was that training on the job took too much time, as emergencies occur quite infrequently and it may take years before a new operator experiences an adequate number of emergencies to get the confidence needed to be a good operator. In other industries, such as aviation, the main advantage of simulation training is the ability to train for a range of emergency scenarios.
In more recent times, the main driver for simulation training has been the rapid change in the grid itself with the increasing penetration of new generation technologies, mainly wind and solar, and even the more recent increase in storage devices, mainly batteries. Moreover, these new technologies are often being incorporated into the lower-voltage portions of the grid, such as rooftop solar, which is often not observable to the operator. These changes are changing the behavior of the grid, presenting the operator with unfamiliar situations. These trends are not only expected to continue but even to accelerate, as most countries in the world are moving as quickly as possible to decarbonize their generation resources.
In some European countries, new tasks arise for the DSOs, such as managing the production of renewable energy sources (RESs), mainly wind and photovoltaic solar, which are being connected to the distribution grid, in the context of power/frequency balancing. With the phaseout of nuclear and coal-fired generators, a tremendous number of RESs are commissioned on the distribution level. Further, the implementation of converter-based infeed makes the power system more digital. Especially, ramp rates and hard operating restrictions, such as “you have to take the maximum infeed they can deliver,” are new challenges, as control options are limited and even missing. New devices, including batteries, are an add-on to the changes. Reorganizational changes in generation dispatch, initiated by generation companies across control center borders and even national borders, further the challenges of estimating reserve power. The commissioning of offshore generation (wind farms in international ocean territories) requires new job positions in the TSO control centers.
The OTS is the best tool to familiarize the operator with the future grid, the grid that is a few years into the future. And it is not just the new generation and storage technologies that are affecting the grid. The new measurement, communication, and control technologies are also changing the tools that are available to the operators to operate and control the grid. This includes the phasor measurement units (PMUs) that are now coming into the control center and the new special protection schemes and faster controls that can provide more operational tools. The downside is that these new tools require familiarization, and it takes months for the system operator to become comfortable with new procedures. Simulation training is the best way to familiarize the operators.
The biggest changes in this area are again happening to the distribution system. The ability to observe distribution feeders more closely and then control them with more intelligent switches and capacitor banks means that the distribution operator is now playing a much more active role. The availability of smart meter data and the ability to utilize rooftop solar and connected electric vehicles opens up new ways to manage the distribution system. Again, the OTS provides a very convenient vehicle to familiarize the operator with such new technology.
Another change taking place since the 1990s is the evolving nature of the electricity markets. The markets do not directly affect the operator, but they change the way the generator resources behave to provide energy as well as ancillary services. This changes the loading of the wires in a different way than if the operator were to dispatch the energy resources centrally. With the change in the generation resources, the markets will change the generation behavior, which will, in turn, change the loading of both transmission and distribution.
All OTS are made up of three main modules:
The power system model is the core of the OTS. It is the digital representation of the power system, capable of mimicking an actual power system by producing analog measurements and status changes in real time. It can also accept and react to control signals from the CCM. This model is described in more detail in the following.
The CCM mimics the control center itself. An exact replica of the real control center, that is, an emulation, would provide the best mimic, but often some shortcuts are taken to provide a look and feel that is similar to the control center. More details are provided in the following.
The instructor position is the unique feature of the OTS that accomplishes the training mission of the OTS. This module sets up the training scenarios and tracks the trainee actions to determine whether the trainee is reacting appropriately to the unfolding power system scenario and resulting in successful training. More details are provided in the following.
The architecture for a regional OTS that is built to support wide-area drills with different types of system operators from different entities working as a coordinated team is given in Figure 1. Here, the CCM (in green) is enhanced to support the different console positions (blue) for different types of operators who would be trained together through joint drills. Every OTS varies widely in its detailed specifications, but there are two categories of OTS that provide different training functions.
Generic simulators are essentially stand-alone simulators that utilize a generic power system model and a generic CCM. Third-party training providers often use such generic simulators, as they are very good for providing training for new operators, who can be taught the basic behavior of power systems. The training can concentrate on how to operate a generic power system without getting too involved in the specific operational procedures of a particular power company. This kind of training is analogous to conducting training for beginning pilots on simple generic flight simulators.
Some well-known generic power system models [e.g., Power and Light Company (PALCO), which was developed from the IEEE 118 bus system] have been used for many years and have a rich library of training scenarios. Figure 2 presents a segment of the very large classroom layout for the PJM application of a generic simulator, with the hypothetical Cascadia System with 30 simulation sessions and a total of 120 users. PJM pioneered the large classroom layout starting with the PALCO model, in 2003, and has maintained this as part of its annual training program each year since. The big advantage is that the training plans can be used over and over again, and the measure of training success is well known. A generic simulator can be fitted with a customized power system of a particular region and then can be used repeatedly for the training of many operators from that region. Using a customized power system replica requires regular data checks and adjustments of data, relevant base cases, and training scenarios to provide up-to-date training.
Most power companies, when they buy a new EMS for their control center, also buy an OTS from the same vendor, which means that the OTS can use the same power system model as the real one and that the CCM can be the exact replica of the control center. The main advantage, of course, is that the look and feel of the OTS is exactly the same as the real EMS. The training can be made very specific for that power company. In pilot training terms, this is similar to training in a flight simulator for the Boeing 787-10. Of course, all generic OTSs can be customized to different extents.
The models required to simulate the power system represent the following components of the grid:
The power system behavior is accurately depicted by simulating these component models together over a wide range of operating states as well as normal, emergency, and restorative conditions. The main driver of the system model is the varying load pattern over time. The system behavior includes both the steady-state behavior as well as the dynamic behavior, which are simulated using these models.
Load models need to include the daily load profile since simulation drills typically cover an 8-h shift. Modeling the dependence of loads P and Q on the voltage and frequency is important. Induction motor starting, cold load pickup, fault-induced delayed voltage recovery, and load management schemes may be required. The modeling of a daily load profile for distributed energy resources can produce reverse power flows at the distribution feeder breaker, which is now required.
The steady-state behavior requires the solution of the algebraic equations that model the transmission and distribution network (the power flow solution). This solution is required at every time step of the dynamic simulation. The transmission and distribution model must include the bus– breaker connectivity so that the changes in the breaker status can correctly update the topology of the network. The joint calculation of transmission and distribution networks is relatively new, as the joint training of transmission and distribution operators has become necessary in recent years, when the behavior on the distribution side is increasingly impacting the transmission side. The power flow solution may require using different algorithms on the transmission network and the distribution feeders.
The OTS can use a long-term (uniform frequency) dynamic solution and a short-term (transient stability) dynamic solution, depending on the needs of the training. A long-term dynamic simulation is basically a second-bysecond dynamic solution of the differential equations of various system models combined with the power flow solution solved every second. The models with dynamic effects include boiler turbine governors, hydro penstock turbine governor systems, automatic generation control, island frequency response, and transformer tap changer response. The long-term dynamic simulation models make a simplifying assumption that all the turbine generators in an island operate at the same frequency.
The long-term dynamic simulation is most commonly used in the OTS, as it provides a very realistic response from the operator viewpoint, especially under emergency and restorative system conditions. Because the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system updates the measurements every few seconds, the operator never sees the subsecond behavior of the system, so these longterm dynamics produce all the data the operator would see in the real control center. Thus, the effects of faults on the system can be simulated by programming the breaker opening events that would be used to successfully clear the fault. Fault currents and rotor angle and power flow swings following fault clearing can be ignored. The impact on the operator, as seen through the SCADA online and alarm displays, will appear to be quite realistic.
A short-term dynamic simulation is now available in many OTSs, where the time step used is in milliseconds (typically 10), which provides a much more granular view of the dynamic behavior even though the operator trainee never actually sees this on the screen, as the screen updates occur only in seconds. However, this faster simulation can provide the changes in the system that occur in the system at subsecond speeds. For example, a fault can be represented by the fast changes in the system that are protected by the action of the relays, although the operator will see only the resulting breaker openings for fault clearance. Another reason for the short-term dynamic simulation is to accurately calculate the values seen by the PMUs, which are again not seen by the operator but can trigger some special protection and controls. It should be noted that the use of short-term dynamic simulation in the OTS is relatively new and requires many more data that usually are not residing in the SCADA/EMS environment. The system data for short-term dynamics have to be collected from offline data bases and added to the OTS database, which, in turn, results in an extra workload when setting up base cases and scenarios.
The energy source models include the primary characteristics of energy sources, such as their minimum and maximum real power operating limits, ramp rates, governor droop characteristics, inertia, and reactive power capability curve. The energy sources may include fossil steam turbine units, nuclear steam units, hydro units, combustion turbines, combined cycle units, and reciprocating engines. The newer energy sources, such as wind turbines, solar photovoltaic units, solar concentrating units, and battery storage systems, are not synchronously rotating machines and require different types of models, including their inverter interfaces. Especially for restoration scenarios, the house load, beginning from generator start until full load operation, should be modeled to improve realistic system performance during the restoration process.
A replica CCM replicates the control system that is used in the real world and interfaces this to a power system model. The replica CCM interfaces with the power system model by using the same protocol as used in the real system (e.g., SCADA protocols). Replica CCMs are provided by the major control center vendors as a standard part of their OTS offerings.
Figure 3 shows the replica control room training center for Operador Nacional do Sistema Elétrico (ONS), the national operator of the Brazilian electric system. This replica CCM OTS was used to train ONS system operators to successfully keep the lights on at multiple stadiums for the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016.
The replica CCMs work very well for training the system operators who work only in that control center. They are not scalable for training with dozens of different entities, which may have control center systems provided by multiple vendors. The bulk of the operator training at independent system operators (ISOs) and large power companies is provided at replica CCMs, which is usually at the same location as the control center. Given that every control center usually has a backup control center that is an exact replica, this facility is often used as the CCM.
Emulated CCMs work well for team training, where the participants include multiple RCs, market operators, transmission operators, BA operators, substation operators, generator operators, and distribution operators. There may be 100 operators all participating in a single drill. Each of these operators has a control system with a user interface that he or she works with in the real world. The CCM has to emulate this control system and user interface, which supports communication among the different role players as it may occur in the real world. For substation operators, emulating the synchroscope is critical.
For large-scale regional OTSs, it is not feasible to replicate all the different control systems that are provided by different vendors for all the different entities represented by the operators discussed in the “OTS Architectures” section. Instead, the control center functions are emulated with a common set of software that is configured to mimic the display systems and the functions of all the different control centers as well as power plant and substation control systems. In multiple-entity simulators, it is possible to use operators to play all the different operating roles. The user interface and the emulated control center functions have to be very intuitive so that the operators can become competent in their use during a 1-h orientation session on the first day of the drill.
Figure 4 displays the classroom with emulated CCMs for public and private utilities from the Desert Southwest area of the Western Electric Coordinating Council across five states. Over 250 participants trained through five successive weeks with a specific breaker switch-oriented model of their own interconnected systems.
The CCM, in addition to the control room environment, has to emulate all the software tools available to the operator.
These include the following functions:
Given that RCs have overall responsibility for mitigating IROLs, considering that the RCs have to work with transmission operators and BAs, who, in turn, have to work with generator operators, substation operators, line workers, and distribution operators, training in clear, concise, and correct communications is a very key part of every operator’s job.
The OTS needs to have a mechanism to support operator communications. This mechanism can be dedicated extensions on the host utility’s phone system, in which case drill participants have to be careful that they do not give an operating order to an operator who is running the real system. It can be a separate commercial conferencing network. The room feature of Zoom and Microsoft Teams can be used to support operator communications.
The North American electricity market was historically based on hundreds of BA areas engaging in bilateral transactions, with systems such as the Open Access Same-Time Information System and the Interchange Distribution Calculator being used to handle congestion management. Over the past two decades, many of the BA areas have been consolidated into a single BA area run by the market operator. The market operator determines the day-ahead security constrained unit commitment as well as the security-constrained economic dispatch for real-time operations. A market operations subsystem should ideally be included in the CCM. There are critical points in system restoration drills, where the market is first suspended and then later reactivated. During the time of market suspension, transmission operators can direct generator operators and where to load their units. It would be informative and beneficial to simulate these transitions.
The instructor functions are used by the instructors to create simulator base cases and event scenarios in preparation for a training simulator session. The instructor functions are also used to run and monitor the simulator session, including taking snapshots and base cases, pausing, rewinding if necessary, and explaining the simulator performance.
Contingency analysis is a very helpful tool for developing scenarios with different levels of difficulty. The most challenging scenarios can be developed by running contingency analysis and programming a series of events that will create a cascading outage. The operator then has the challenge of taking mitigating actions to make sure that this event does not create a cascading outage within a time frame of 30 min or less.
Contingency analysis is a very valuable instructor’s tool. It provides a very clear measure of whether there are system operating limit (SOL) violations and IROL violations and whether these SOLs and IROLs are mitigated in the appropriate time limits.
The instructor functions can support a data historian to support a performance assessment and cognitive task analysis of the system operators as they respond to various scenarios. This data historian can record the state of the power system, the displays accessed by the different system operators, and the control actions taken. These data can be analyzed with machine learning to determine the cues observed by the system operator and, most importantly, what mental models the system operator processed to determine the corrective actions taken.
Unlike the power system model and the CCM, which has counterparts in the control center EMS, the instructor position is unique to the OTS. The functions in this module are all about the training functions themselves. The main functions are detailed in the following.
The scenarios needed for training get more complex as the training objectives become more complicated. There are many generic training objectives, such as the opening and closing of breakers and setting the voltage set points, that are just simple procedures, and the scenarios needed for training these procedures are minimal. On the other hand, specific training objectives, such as the handling of postfault systems, requires more complex scenarios. These scenarios get more complicated if multiple or joint training is needed.
Building a scenario for training a large team of operators from different utilities in restorations drills is the simplest scenario to build. The system is fully or partially blacked out, certain equipment is marked out of service, and then the operators are all engaged in implementing their restoration plans. On the other hand, building a scenario to train a large team in an emergency operations drill is a lot more challenging. Disturbances tend to start in one part of the system, propagate to other parts of the systems, and leave a large part of the system untouched. The operators, on the other hand, all expect to have an unusual operating condition to give them a learning experience. One effective way to address this problem is to train in events that have a wide geographic impact, such as firestorms, hurricanes, tornadoes, extreme cold weather across multiple states, gas curtailments due to multiple pipelines being unavailable, and multiple islands. The challenge is to then ensure that the power flow is capable of giving credible solutions when the system is evolving through many states that have never been studied before. Most custom OTSs that are tied to a control center have the ability to capture an actual scenario from the control center itself and transfer it to the OTS so that operators can be trained on events that have actually occurred.
The instructor must be able to monitor the trainees as well as pause and rewind the scenario. At the end of the session, the instructor should be able to rewind and replay the session to provide feedback to the trainees. A separate trainer console is a common module of the OTS.
An operator has to routinely interact with people outside his or her own control center, including generator operators, distribution operators, and operators in neighboring systems. The instructor position should be extensible to role-play these extra personnel.
It is becoming more common to conduct joint training of several operators at the same time, with these operators being in neighboring control centers horizontally or in neighboring power companies or vertically at different voltage levels. Sometimes, the OTS at the ISO can be large enough to accommodate this situation, but at other times, several control centers may be simultaneously involved to play the complex training scenario.
As the electric power grid evolves, it is facing new operational challenges, so the training of the system operator must keep up to increase the competence to handle these operational challenges. One category of challenges is caused by the introduction of new technologies, such as
The second category of challenges represents new threats to the resiliency of the grid, such as
Both these types of challenges are not well defined, so the training needed is of a different type than used for training new operators to bring them to the level of experienced operators. This situation occurs because only some of the operational challenges brought about by the massive addition of new technologies can be anticipated; not all can be known. This result is also true of weather-related events and possible attacks. Actually, the training simulator that can simulate such scenarios may be better able to pinpoint these new operational difficulties. So, the need for better OTSs is even more important today.
One operational need that has already been identified is the coordination among the many organizational entities in the grid and, especially, the coordination between the control centers of these entities. Vertically, there may be several levels of control centers between the highest-level ISO/TSO and the lowest-level DSO, and the information flow among the control center computers as well as the control center computers is continually being studied and updated. Horizontally, there are many control centers that belong to interconnected parts of the power grid, and the same machine and human communication is needed for operations. The need for joint training exercises among all these control center operators has been recognized and is covered in this article.
The other challenge for such training is to update the simulation models in the power system model of the OTS to properly represent the new technologies. Thankfully, this challenge is not unique to the training simulators, as the modeling of these new technologies, such as inverter-connected energy resources, is needed for all other offline and online analytical tools. Once the basic physics of these new technologies is known, the models can be adapted to the various tools, including the OTS. It should be mentioned that the point of connection codes changes through the years, which impacts the models as well, which now have to adjust (e.g., the voltage range and frequency range).
The bigger challenge has been in the training for handling disasters that incur severe equipment damage. The restoration of the damaged part of the grid requires both logistics and time. Moreover, such restoration requires more than just power company workers but all the rest of the first responders, from police and fire officials to other utilities and emergency workers. In recent years, tabletop drills have been used to train all such workers together, but these exercises have not utilized the OTS. This situation is a bigger challenge than the joint training of neighboring control center operators, and simulating these scenarios on the OTS will have to be developed.
Finally, a continuing challenge has been the need for the training standards to keep up with the operational challenges. This article began with the training standards set by NERC and ENTSO-E, and although these standards are periodically updated and now require some simulation-based training, these requirements are not very specific. As the new operational challenges evolve, the incentives to develop the methods to simulate these new scenarios will be helped if the standards are updated to encourage it. Moreover, as training decisions are still mainly made at the individual company level, an evolving standard also helps to keep the interconnected utilities hewing to the same training procedures.
Within the ENTSO-E region, additional challenges have to be implemented in training. As the directives at least end up in national individual codes in each country, different operational rules and procedures are existing. Furthermore, each country has its own mother tongue (English is chosen as the common language, but in continental Europe, there are no native English speakers) and some unique designs of its own power system. These differences among countries put an extra burden on the development, implementation, and performance of joint training across national borders. Besides the common solving of technical situations, the harmonization of procedures, the communication, and the coordination of actions have to be part of the training.
The scenarios used in inter-TSO training include redispatch across national borders affecting multiple TSOs. System split scenarios end up in common control center actions exceeding the observability area, i.e., the visible part of the entire power system. Restoration scenarios start from black start paths, which have to be synchronized to a backbone system across control areas. The “how to operate the interconnected power system” delivers the input for scenarios used for joint intercompany training. The TSO develops and verifies the procedures, commonly with the connected DSOs and production companies.
Furthermore, the companies taking part in intercompany training use the training as a real-life platform to train and integrate the communicators of their crisis teams. These communicators usually are experts in public relationships and the use of social media, without power system operation experience.
Other challenges result from organizational changes, such as mergers of control centers, changes in dispatch responsibilities (who is dispatching which unit), and so on, which requires changes to the OTS data model regarding the organizational structure.
Although OTSs were introduced in the 1970s, their widespread use took off only in the 1990s, when the computer technologies were advanced enough to provide simulations that were realistic enough for training purposes. Their use was still somewhat uneven until the grid codes (reliability standards) in the different regions of the world required such simulation training. The traditional methods of on-the-job training enhanced by book lessons and tabletop exercises were not good enough for the operator in the face of cascading outages. The OTS provided a major enhancement in operator training and the changing grid with increasing renewables, storage, and smart controls that will require even more sophisticated OTSs.
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Anjan Bose is with Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99163 USA.
Robin Podmore is with Incremental Systems, Issaquah, WA 98027 USA.
Udo Spanel is with DUtrain, 47228 Duisburg, Germany.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2023.3247045
Date of current version: 19 April 2023
1540-7977/23©2023IEEE