ABB Review Special Report - ABB - ABB Group

with the new planning methodologyand tailored to the company’s newgoals and needs.Seminars and workshops for over220 engineers, managers and supervisorsfrom 14 operating districts, toconvey the concepts and skills necessaryto implement the new approach.Load forecast study performed usinga commercially available GIS database asstarting pointconsiderable cost savings without significantlyaffecting reliability. The studyalso recommended use of some of thenewer probabilistic approaches to systemplanning which help minimize thecost of new investments.After receiving the study results, theutility indicated that it was “very impressedby ABB’s ability to set up a crossborderteam in such a short time tocope with a challenging project with avery tough deadline.”Business processes and assetutilizationIn another example, ABB instituted ‘budget-constrained’planning policies andmethods appropriate for a regulated US‘wire company’ operating in a competitiveenvironment. The project included:A review of all engineering planningand budgeting procedures, reliabilityrequirements, engineering criteria,planning guidelines, and appropriatestandards, as well as planning, budgetingand engineering results fromthe past ten years.Development and implementation ofa new planning/budgeting/projectprioritization method based on marginalbenefit/cost optimization usingcustomer service quality costs aswell as budget cost as an element ofperformance evaluation.Design of an entirely new planningprocess and organization, compatibleAnother project undertaken by ABB involvedinvestigating the operations andmaintenance history and procedures of aTexas utility’s underground distributionand transmission cable systems in theDallas, Fort Worth and DFW airport serviceareas. The investigation includedreliability assessments of the transmissionand distribution systems using anetwork model. Also included were inspectionsof parts of the utility cable networks,substations and pumping stations,as well as interviews with utility operations,engineering, and maintenance personnel.The investigation further includeda review of utility standards, guidelinesand documentation relevant to theoperation of the cable network.Power system performance researchAnother area in which ABB is active is inresearch into power system performanceand the development of new technologiesfor its improvement. In one suchproject, named ‘Wide Area Disturbance’,we examined, among other things, voltageinstability, overload and out-of-step.Based on this, we developed a newalgorithm for estimating the proximityto voltage collapse. The method employsonly local measurements – busvoltage and load current – and is simpleenough to be implemented in a numericalrelay. The relay’s estimation can beused for a number of applications, forexample to enhance local controllers(SVCs, etc) or to direct load shedding.Alternatively, the estimation can be sentto a computing center as support forsystem coordination.Other completed projects, eg ‘RobustControl of FACTS Devices’ and ‘Controlof Nets, Drives and Converters’, haveexamined the algorithms for dampingpower oscillations under uncertainoperating conditions. UncertaintiesScreenshot taken from a budget-constrainedplanning software simulationincluded transmission outages andvarying load profiles. New algorithmsand software for centralized anddecentralized robust controllers weredeveloped and tested by means ofsimulations on realistic system models.Backing up ABB’s consulting business isdomain expertise and field experienceaccumulated over decades in the powerindustry, plus a global presence thatallows us to bring best practices fromall over the world together to help ourutility customers improve their businessperformance.Rana MukerjiABB Power TechnologiesABB Inc.Raleigh, NC, USArana.mukerji@us.abb.comSpecial ReportABB Review31