Discrete Events in Power Systems

Abstract

The relevance of Discrete Event System theory (whether synthetic or analytic) to power system analysis and control is not clear. However, based on several characterizations of the domain of discrete systems set forth in the January 1989 Special Issue of the IEEE Proceedings, on “Dynamics of discrete event systems” (Ho, 1989), we attempt to delineate several power system control problems that may be amenable to analysis by DEDS methodologies. While the author is not qualified to judge whether the latter can speak to any of the examples, it may be relevant that in all cases the problems are non-trivial and in need of further contributions toward improved solutions, especially in view of the ongoing radical restructuring of the industry. The continuous process that is instantiated in the functioning of a power system is observed via three more or less diverse variables. Two of these, the scaler “system” frequency and the vector system voltage profile, are in principle mensurable physical phenomena; the third, system security, is a quality represented by a set membership conditioned on an inferred relationship between the two physical system variables and future realizations of one or more classes of autonomous stochastic phenomena. (These latter may be internal or external to the physical system, such as, e.g., respectively, equipment failure mechanisms and weather events.)