Power System Blackouts and Restoration: Causes, Prevention, Automatic Protection Schemes, Graphic Course

Course Overview:

The course provides electric system planners, designers and operators with vital knowledge and tools to solve contemporary issues like competition, open access, wheeling and technology integration.

This one helps in enhancing AC power system reliability, cascading blackout and supply quality. Topics also include causes of blackout, methods of prevention, required parameters for planning the grid, and transfer limit. 

It is addressed to junior and senior electrical engineers, and it discusses international norms, real life situations and practice aimed at increasing the stability and resilience of the power grid.

Course Objectives:

• To provide electric system planners, designers and operators with concepts, tools and methodologies essential to address modern-day issues of competition, open access, wheeling and new technology in system planning
• How to improve the quality of supply in A.C power system
• Necessary steps to prevent cascading blackouts

Who Should Attend?

This course is intended for junior & senior electrical engineers working in operation, planning maintenance, protection, control, and analysis of utilities & industrial electrical networks

Course Outlines:

Blackout Causes Overview

• Voltage instability initiating blackouts
• Induction motors role in triggering a blackout
• Cold rush current effects on blackout
• Blackout prevention by general & network voltage control
• Blackout prevention by loads voltage stabilization
• Example

Blackout Preventive Measures

• How and why the blackout begins

• Causes of the blackout and violations of standards.
• Under-frequency and under-voltage load shedding
• Example

Planning Criteria and Reliable Operation of Power Grid 

• Reliability organizations
• Key parties in the pre-cascade phase
• Review of international practice
• Representing reliability measures and customer costs
• Application examples (U.S and Jordan Blackout)
• Contingency analysis
• Ranking and screening methods
• Defining a study area
• Handling divergence, islanding, relying on events
• Measuring customer impact

Transfer Limit Analysis

• Thermal and voltage limits
• Defining transfer conditions
• PV curses for normal and contingency condition
• Transient stability
• Example