DYNAMIC ANALYSIS AND CONTROL SYSTEM ENGINEERING IN UTILITY SYSTEMS

FP de Mello

Consulting Engineer

INTRODUCTION

I am indeed flattered and pleased to address this conference on Control Applications. Having spent my entire career in the power industry, in the discipline of Power System Engineering, it is appropriate that I share with you my experience and views on control applications and dynamic analysis in this industry.

I will attempt to convey in a limited way an introspective appreciation of developments in analysis and control in Power Systems. Unlike many technologies which sprouted only within the last few decades, and which would not have come to being without the computer, the core and structure of the Power System is still composed of equipments which, except for size and sophistication, resemble other vintages dating back a whole century. Looking back, it is amazing that complex power systems were successfully designed, built and operated based on rule of thumb and slide rule calculations.

Dynamic analysis is not an end in itself but only one of the vital disciplines in the planning, design and operation of reliable electrical systems. It is interesting to contrast the practical from the impractical and try to understand the reasons why impractical analysis approaches have sometimes been advocated and supported much beyond what could be justified from common sense or economic viewpoints.

In the background, we should recognize the major events that have impacted the technology of control, namely: World War II and the Cold War, with Sputnik as a dramatic milestone. These events have been tremendous propellers of advancements in the technology of dynamic analysis. There were important differences however. The urgency for results in the race against Hitler within available time and resources focused World War II efforts on very practical approaches.

Sputnik intensified efforts in Space technology with its tremendous fallout in the technology of electronics, communication and computing hardware. It also gave rise to unprecedented federal research funding into analysis methods. Without the pressure of an ongoing war, and fostered by a backlash of feeling that sophisticated mathematics and analytical techniques had propelled the USSR ahead of the U.S., the discipline of control analysis often wandered into impractical approaches with no tangible applications in the real world.

An interesting cross-development was the advent of the digital computer which has had far more impact on the technical and economic affairs of mankind than any single invention in the last 100 years. It is ironic that while the digital computer liberated anal