Today, I have another speaker update for you for our Big Data Analytics for Smart Power Networks event coming up on 8th November.


Douglas Wilson, PhD; Chief Scientist WAMS, GE Grid Solutions 

About the speaker:

Douglas is Chief Scientist for WAMS with GE Grid Solutions. He is involved in strategic innovation projects within GE and with industry partners worldwide.  


He joined Psymetrix Limited at its startup in 1998, and was Chief Technical Officer up to the company’s acquisition by Alstom Grid in 2011. Douglas was involved in creating and applying the world first real-time oscillation management system. Douglas was designated a Senior Expert in Alstom Grid, and received awards in the Alstom’s Innovation programmes. 


Douglas has been involved in various consulting projects with customers, in areas such as power system dynamic performance studies, power system stabiliser tuning, governor tuning, disturbance analysis, and development of roadmaps in wide area monitoring, control and protection. He has also worked on strategic research and development in various fields, including new technology options for Active Network Management in distribution systems. 


Douglas graduated with a B.Eng (Hons, 1st class) and PhD from the University of Edinburgh, and an MSc (Distinction) from the University of Manchester. As well as his industrial work, he has been involved in supervising students and in various industry/academia collaborations. Douglas has authored around 50 technical papers, and has contributed to various books and IEC/IEEE working group publications. He is an inventor on seven patents (granted and pending). 

Synopsis:

Applying cloud computing to high speed wide area synchrophasor solutions

Synchrophasor solutions have been deployed extensively in transmission networks for observing system dynamics and stability. The technology has proven to be a rich source of information to understand complex power system behaviour. There are some barriers in the standard approach that inhibit wider adoption of the technology, which can be removed by applying cloud computing and big data analytics. In particular:

1.    The volume of data involved can be huge, and the cost and burden on the organisation can be a problem

2.    Data sharing between organisations presents logistical and cyber security challenges

3.    Interpreting large volumes of synchrophasor information is a specialist task 


GE has embarked on a technology investigation using its Predix cloud platform to explore the use of fast stream synchrophasor data. This project is looking at the challenges of securely communicating and managing the data, as well as looking at the application areas served, with measurement obtained simply from wall power sockets. Observations of grid disturbances, stresses and oscillations - traditionally the domain of transmission systems – can be observed from these easily accessible measurements. The progress in trial applications will be demonstrated.


One particular application area discussed is in facilitating new forms of grid services from widely distributed and diverse resources, mostly connected at distribution voltages, but with physical capability to serve both transmission and distribution requirements. A cloud solution is well suited to measuring and co-ordinating the resources across many stakeholders, which would be very difficult to achieve in other ways.