New smart grid applications for power system operations

Smart grid technologies for the high voltage power grid usually refer to (1) the new sensors that can sample voltages and currents at very fast rates and calculate their phase relationships by coordinating with aGPS time signal, (2) the high bandwidth communications that can move this voluminous measurement data to monitoring and control stations, and (3) fast controllers like breakers and power electronic controls (FACTS) that can be operated by remote signals. This raises the possibility of many new applications for monitoring, for advisory notification, and for automatic control that can help the system operator and system operation. In this panel presentation we discuss some of these new applications that weren't possible before as well as the modifications of existing applications which can be made more robust and more useful by the new technologies.