PQ Event Notifications

The purpose of the power quality event notifications enterprise activity is to enable a mechanism whereby stakeholders are alerted as soon as possible to the location, time and severity of power quality events that occur.

Power quality event capture instruments can be installed anywhere on the electric power grid including transmission substations all the way down to end-use customer facilities. After an event capture there are generally two methods employed to notify stakeholders that an event has occurred. The first method is an “on-the-fly” approach, near real-time. When an event is captured, if it exceeds pre-set thresholds for notifications, then an email or page is immediately sent to a list of recipients. Generally, these emails or pages will list the time, magnitude and severity. In the case of some instrument manufacturers, a link is given to go back and view the event and in some cases, the event is embedded in the actual email message.

The other form of event notification is “after-the-fact” or post-processed. In this method, the data is collected and then processed by a central server or other type of application that is looking for events that exceeded thresholds. In this case, the central server application then sends out emails or pages to a list of recipients. This method has time lag built in because in some instances, data is downloaded only daily and messages are sent after the data is post-processed. Some instruments after and event is captured, will call back to the central server to let the server know, they should download data, reducing the time lag.

Key communication occurs between the instruments to pager vendor and ISPs and from the instruments to the central server and then similarly from the central server out to pager vendor and ISPs or internal mail servers.

Steps

#	Event	Name of Process/Activity	Description of Process/Activity	Information Producer	Information Receiver	Name of Info Exchanged	Additional Notes	IntelliGrid Architecture Environments
1.1	Event Capture	Event Capture	If voltage and/or current thresholds are exceeded, the power quality instrument records and event	Power Quality Instrument	Instrument	Voltage and current waveforms and other power quality data		Inter-Field Equipment
1.2A.1	Instrument Event Notification	Instrument Event Notification	If an event is triggered, the instrument sends out pages and/or emails to stakeholder recipients	Power Quality Instrument	Customer	PQ Event data and/or summary data including date, time, magnitude, duration, etc.	Basic telecommunication constraints such as modem and dial up telephone connection, but could also include internet TCP/IP connectivity or even cellular	Intra-Customer Site
1.2B.1	Event Transmittal	Event Transmittal	After an event is triggered, the instrument calls back to the central server and the server downloads the data	Power Quality Instrument	Central Server	Voltage and current waveforms and data	Basic telecommunication constraints such as modem and dial up telephone connection, but could also include internet TCP/IP connectivity or even cellular	ESP to Customer
1.2.B.2	Server Event Notification	Server Event Notification	After the central server software processes the event data, pages and/or emails are sent out to stakeholders	Central Server	Customer	PQ Event data and/or summary data including date, time, magnitude, duration, etc.	Basic telecommunication constraints such as modem and dial up telephone connection, but could also include internet TCP/IP connectivity or even cellular	ESP to Customer

Customer Services - Power Quality (PQ) Event Notifications Function

Contents

Narrative

Steps