18-863-K3   Power Systems Operations

Location: Africa

Units: 6

Semester Offered: Spring

Couse discipline

ECE

Course concentration

Energy (Kigali)

Intelligent Physical Systems (Pittsburgh)

Course description

This course examines the human-aided monitoring, planning, and decision-making that enable reliable, secure, and safe operation of an electric power system, on the time scale of minutes to weeks. We will study selected technical details via case studies of adding new equipment or processes. 

Learning objectives

Students will be introduced to the requirements of a grid owner/operator and the time frames of activity that structure efforts to meet and maintain performance targets.

Outcomes

After completing this course, students will be prepared to analyze and evaluate the consequences of an electrical grid's physical and operational processes of connecting new equipment or adopting new communications and information systems. They will be familiar with the use of selected power system software tools.

Content details

  • Operational planning and control centers
  • Information and communication systems
  • Load and generation forecasting
  • Unit commitment and dispatch
  • Maintenance and outage management
  • Power system security

Faculty

Barry Rawn