Enabling the appropriate operational response to power system events

Abstract

On 12 June 2006 operators had to manage multiple simultaneous system issues across the New Zealand power system including: -an equipment failure causing a loss of supply to New Zealand's largest city equivalent to a third of system demand in the North Island, -a one in 20 year snow storm causing widespread faults and multiply loss of supplies across the New Zealand's South Island and, -the disruption to the primary gas supply threatening the loss of all gas fired generation.Power system operators were able to successfully manage these events and keep all market functions operating through the combination of the technology provided to operational staff, the contingency planning and training systems along with the flexible resourcing arrangement with a "virtual control centre" 1 . Together these factors all contributed to ensure operators had sufficient situational awareness to understand the situation, were equipped with the knowledge to make good timely decisions, and enabled the rapid deployment of additional operators to manage the coordination of these multiple events within the control room.This paper describes the recent changes by the New Zealand's market and system operator, Transpower, that enabled both operators and management to successfully respond to extreme system events.