Restoration Drills > Made Easy

NERC Standards EOP-005: System Restoration from Blackstart Resources and EOP- 006: System Restoration Coordination require that Transmission Owners, Balancing Authorities and Reliability Coordinators use realistic system specific simulators for verifying restoration plans and conducting coordinated restoration drills.

Conventional EMS simulators are not designed with the reliability, capacity or ease of use to support the variety of role players and the large number of participants that are required by NERC for regional restoration drills.

Some Reliability Coordinators have used paper maps to support restoration drills in the past, but the level of realism for these drills is greatly enhanced by using simulators.

Solution

Since 2004, IncSys and PowerData have worked closely with organizations to provide simulation and support for restoration drills around the country, including:

“Over the past four years, the restoration drills have progressed through table top drills, to a visual basic, excel based power flow, before adopting the PowerSimulator software. The move to the simulator based drills has been a huge step forward... it allows people to see an environment that they are used to being in, with breakers, switches, busses and lines."

- Bob Thompson, Training Coordinator, ATCO Electric Participant in AESO restoration drill

Delivery Options > All you need is a room and computers

With the PowerSimulator BRICK or Web Server any size organization cost effectively support restoration drills that provide compliance with many of the EOP-005 and EOP-006 requirements using system-specific simulation. All you need is a room and computers.

Mission Critical Support Team

The team of IncSys and PowerData is one of the few organizations to treat training as a mission critical function. When hundreds of people are making the effort to show up for a two day event; it is critical that the simulator be delivered on-time and that it run reliably. By working closely with our customers in pre-drill preparation phase, IncSys and PowerData can ensure that our customers conduct world-class training events.

COMPLY with EOP-005 and EOP-006

With PowerSimulator, Reliability Coordinators, Transmission Operators, Generator Operators, Transmission Owners, Distribution Providers and Field can all jointly participate in large scale drills that accomplish all of the following EOP-005 and EOP-006 requirements:

» Transmission Operators shall perform steady state and dynamic simulations to verify that their restoration plan accomplishes its intended function.

» Transmission Operators shall perform annual restoration training for their System Operators to assure the proper execution of their restoration plan. This includes training on; coordination with the Reliability Coordinator and Generator Operators, restoration priorities, building of cranking paths and synchronizing re-energized
sections of the System.

» Each Transmission Operator, each applicable Transmission Owner, and each applicable Distribution Provider shall provide a minimum of two hours of System restoration training every two years to their field switching personnel.

» Each Generator Operator with a Blackstart Resource shall provide a minimum of two hours of training every
two years to each of its operating personnel responsible for the startup of its Blackstart Resource generation units and energizing a bus. The training program must include, coordination with the Transmission Operator and procedures with starting each Blackstart Resource and energizing a bus.

» Each Reliability Coordinator shall include within its operations training program, annual System restoration training for its System Operators to ensure assure the proper execution of its restoration plan. This training program shall include address the following; System restoration philosophy including the coordination role of the Reliability Coordinator and reestablishing the Interconnection.

» Each Reliability Coordinator shall conduct two System restoration drills, exercises, or simulations per calendar year, which shall include the Transmission Operators and Generator Operators as dictated by the particular scope of the drill, exercise, or simulation that is being conducted.

“Recovering from a widespread power outage is a dynamic and complex process. By using PowerSimulator with EPRI OTS, ISO New England’s simulated restoration training exercises more closely match the types of issues operators could encounter were a system-wide outage to occur. The tools’ real-time feedback provides information necessary to validate and enhance our restoration procedures and improves our operator’s ability to respond to these types of events successfully and safely.”

-Girard Elliott’ Former Supervisor, Operations Training ISO New England.

The products and programs using PowerSimulator™ are designed to meet the NERC simulation compliance standards: