Use of virtual agents to effect intelligent distribution automation

Distribution automation has long been applied to improve reliability on distribution circuits. Its typical application has been to effect supervisory control of the system in one fashion or another. Unfortunately, such centralized control schemes lack the flexibility and adaptability required to meet the ever increasing needs of the electric power user. Electric power distribution companies need the next step - intelligent distribution automation (IDA). IDA takes advantage of advances in computing technology and communication to move the intelligence closer to the problems that need to be solved. But, distributing the intelligence requires innovative command and control strategies to ensure the multiple intelligent devices effectively share information and deliver a consistent and helpful result for the power distribution system. Virtual agents are the ideal method for implementing this control. This paper reviews the practical examples of the use of such agents and give the reader a better feel, on a technical level, of how this is being done in the real world-today