This paper reports on the development and subsequent use of the electric power and communication synchronizing simulator (EPOCHS), a distributed simulation environment. Existing electric power simulation tools accurately model power systems of the past, which were controlled as large regional power pools without significant communication elements. However, as power systems increasingly turn to protection and control systems that make use of computer networks, these simulators are less and less capable of predicting the likely behavior of the resulting power grids. Similarly, the tools used to evaluate new communication protocols and systems have been developed without attention to the roles they might play in power scenarios. EPOCHS integrates multiple research and commercial off-the-shelf systems to bridge the gap.

The basis of an alternative approach for accurately locating faults on teed feeders is described. The technique developed uses fault voltages and currents at all three ends. The method is virtually independent of fault resistance and largely insensitive to variations in source impedance, teed and line configurations, including line untransposition. The basic theory of the technique is presented. It is extensively tested using simulated primary system voltage and current waveforms, which include the transducer/hardware errors encountered in practice. The performance clearly shows a high degree of accuracy.

This paper presents a study of wide area agents based on communication for primary and backup coordinated protection. Agents are used to give each protection component control capacity as well as the ability to communicate with other agents. We feel that this method naturally points toward a new philosophy for primary and backup protection. Simulations are used to illustrate concepts, using a simulation engine called EPOCHS that combines the EMTDC/PSCAD power simulator with the NS2 network communications simulator. Results show the improved performance of our protection scheme. In this new protection system, agents were embedded in each of the conventional protection components to construct an IED relay. The agent searches for relevant information by communicating with other agents. Agent communication can take place at the same substation or at remote substations. This information can be used to detect primary and remote faults, relay misoperation, breaker failures, and to compensate such problems with a much better performance than can be done in traditional schemes. Preliminary results give us hope that the proposed protection scheme may be able to contribute toward the mitigation of wide-area disturbances and the power blackouts that frequently follow them.