An automated fault analysis system for SP energy networks: Requirements, design and implementation

The proliferation of monitoring equipment on modern electrical power transmission networks is causing an increasing amount of monitoring data to be captured by transmission network operators. Traditional manual data analysis techniques fail to meet the analysis and reporting requirements of the utilities which have chosen to invest in monitoring. The volume of monitoring data, the complexities in analysing multiple related data sources and the preparation of internal reports based on that analysis, render timely manual analysis impractical, if not intractable. In 2006, the authors reported on the first online trials of the protection engineering diagnostics agents (PEDA) system, an automated fault diagnosis system which integrated legacy intelligent systems for the analysis of SCADA and digital fault recorder (DFR) data in order to provide automatic post fault assessment of protection system performance. In this paper the authors revisit the requirements of the TNO where PEDA was trialled. Based on a new formal specification of requirements carried out in 2008, the authors discuss the requirements met by the current version of PEDA and how PEDA could be augmented to meet these new requirements highlighted in this latest analysis of the utilities' requirements.