Webinar Series: Reduction of Unknown Outages and … of...Webinar Series: Reduction of Unknown Outages and Misoperations Session 1: Process and Documentation W E S T E R N E L E C

Webinar Series: Reduction of Unknown Outages and Misoperations

Session 1: Process and Documentation

W E S T E R N E L E C T R I C I T Y C O O R D I N A T I N G C O U N C I L

Issue Identified

WECC identified issue with unknown transmission outages and protection system misoperations.

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Western Interconnection3


Transmission Outages Protection System Misoperations

Distribution of Entities4


Transmission Outages Protection System Misoperations

Best Performers• AltaLink• Arizona Electric

Power Cooperative• Bonneville Power

Administration• Comisión Federal

de Electricidad• Imperial Irrigation

District• Pacific Gas and

Electric Company• Platte River Power

Authority

• Portland General Electric Company

• Public Utility District No. 2 of Grant County, Washington

• Salt River Project• Seattle City Light• Tri-State Generation

and Transmission Association

• Tucson Electric Power

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Summary of Entities Practices

18 practices across 4 themes

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Webinar Series

• Session 1: Process and Documentation

– Bonneville Power Administration

– AltaLink

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Unknown OutagesBonneville Power Administration (BPA) Practice

Ralph Erdmann, Public Utilities SpecialistDRAFT February 16, 2017


BPA at a Glance

• BPA is a nonprofit federal power marketing administration that markets wholesale electrical power from 31 federal hydroelectric projects in the Northwest, one nonfederal nuclear plant and several small nonfederal power plants.

• Provides about 28 percent of the electric power used in the Northwest.

• Operates and maintains about three-fourths of the high-voltage transmission in our service area.

• Customers

– Power, 142

– Marketers, 205

– Transmission, 475

• 15,212 circuit miles (24,481 kilometers)

• 261 substations

• 3,100 employees (not including contractors)

• ~ 200 employees directly involved in outage process

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BPA’s NERC TADS Reporting Process Flowchart

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Evolution of Outage Process (timeline)

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• Pre 1990, Paper trouble reports stored at each field substation, paper Dispatch Log– Outage information essentially unavailable for statistical purposes

• Early 1990’s, Interim OARS, paper trouble reports submitted from the field to headquarters joined with Dispatcher information and entered into a central, electronic database– Outage information readily available (after a data entry delay)– Dual data entry, on paper form, and reentered electronically

• 1995, OARS, Dispatcher information and field trouble reports entered directly into a central, electronic database– Outage information available immediately for all to see and use– Outage data entered directly from the field

• WECC Transmission Reliability Database (TRD) reporting CY 2006-2009• NERC Transmission Availability Data System (TADS) starting CY 2010 (direct reporting)

Evolution of Outage Process (cont)

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• Internal Drivers– Began with each craft’s needs as identified by the trouble report forms.

(Led by OPS and SPC Functional Teams)– Operations’ decision to institute objective measures of performance, e.g.

statistical process control, SAIFI, and SAIDI.– Formal agency performance targets related to automatic outages (Key

Performance Indicators (KPI) include SAIFI/SAIDI)

• External Drivers– NERC Misoperation reporting– WECC Transmission Reliability Database (TRD)– NERC Transmission Availability Data System (TADS)

Substation Operations (OPS) Paper Trouble Report

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Substation Operations (OPS) OARS Trouble Report

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Dispatcher and Reference Information

Outage information specific to this Craft/Station

Comments by Craft/Station

Trouble Report Selector (click on link to select a different trouble report)

System Protection and Control (SPC) Paper Trouble Report

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System Protection and Control (SPC) OARS Trouble Report

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Dispatcher and Reference Information

NERC Misoperation Information

Comments by Craft/Station

Trouble Report Selector (click on link to select a different trouble report)

Outage information specific to this Craft/Station

NERC TADS Outage Review

• Monthly review• OARS outages converted to comport with NERC

TADS reporting requirements by employing “default” logic (e.g. in the case of causes a lookup table is used)

• Performed by two Outage Engineers and a Relay Engineer with access to digital event recorders, SCADA, etc.

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Outage Guidelines (separate file)

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• Ensures that everyone in the outage process is working “on the same page”

• Last entry “wins” when there are differences of opinion as to cause, component, etc. (Dispatcher, up to six field trouble reports, Outage Review Team)

Company Culture

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• Decision making by craft (Dispatch, OPS, SPC), largely by consensus. Coordination is done by functional team leads.

• Parts of Dispatch initially balked at the recording transformer outages for NERC TADS reporting (at that point transformer outages were not being recorded). The argument was, “This additional effort detracts from keeping the lights on, we are not the agency’s bean counters.” In this rare instance management intervention was required. Note: It is invaluable to have a regulatory mandate to hang your hat on.

Unknown Outage Takeaways

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• Consistency in outage collection and reporting (process matters)– Centralized outage and reference information and data stewardship– Common outage guidelines– IEEE standard outage metrics (SAIFI,SAIDI)

• Shared Accountability (everyone has a responsibility in the outage process)– Centralized database allows for trouble report completion rates by

organization and by organizational headquarter (competition/shame)

• Unknown outages need not be scrutinized to have below average unknown outage rates

Questions?

Ralph Erdmann, Public Utilities Specialist

Bonneville Power [email protected]

360.418.2333

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mailto:[email protected]

Unknown Outages – AltaLink Practice

Mahdi Hajian, Sr. System Operations Engineer

Chris Patterson, Sr. Transmission Line Engineer


AltaLink at a Glance 23


• Serve more than three million Albertans

• ~13,000 kilometers of transmission lines (up to 500kV voltage)

• ~310 substations

• ~850 employees

Forced Outage Tracking Process

– To track and record all forced outages on the transmission system (CEA criteria)

– Dedicated team (Disturbance Analysis)

– Database (TOSS: Transmission Outage Statistic System)

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Forced Outage Tracking Process 25


Forced Outage Tracking Process

• How was the practice developed?

– Has been around since 2003 but evolved/expanded over time, final process in place since early 2016

– System Operation and Asset Management were involved.

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Typical Unknown Outages

• Protection misoperations

– No protection setting issue

– No issue found after relay testing

• Transmission line events

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Unknown Transmission Line Outages

1. Review monthly outage report. All events are reviewed for cause.

2. Look for known indicators & physical evidence.

3. Look for similar known outage causes in the area or date/time.

4. Review outage history for asset & trends for asset/material type.

5. Additional investigation & root-cause failure analysis (as needed).

6. Make an experience based call on outage cause. (<50% = “Unknown”)

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A

B

C

Adverse Weather – Frost

Transmission Line Outage Tracking29


Transmission Line Trending30


Conclusion (aka. Progress to Date)31



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Mahdi Hajian, Sr. System Operations [email protected]

Chris Patterson, Sr. Transmission Line Engineer [email protected]

Questions?



Questions• Session 2: Outage Analytics

Tuesday, February 21, 2017 10-11 a.m. MT

• Session 3: Management Involvement

Tuesday, February 28, 2017 10-11 a.m. MT

Registration questions: Marshelle Butler (801) 819-7693 [email protected]

Webinar content questions: Maggie Peacock (801) 819-7621 [email protected]

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Documents

Webinar Series: Reduction of Unknown Outages and … of...Webinar Series: Reduction of Unknown Outages and Misoperations Session 1: Process and Documentation W E S T E R N E L E C