Smart Transmission Grid Vision and Framework

Abstract—A modern power grid needs to become smarter in order to provide an affordable, reliable, and sustainable supply of electricity. For these reasons, considerable activity has been carried out in the United States and Europe to formulate and promote a vision for the development of future smart power grids. However, the majority of these activities emphasized only the distribution grid and demand side leaving the big picture of the transmission grid in the context of smart grids unclear. This paper presents a unique vision for the future of smart transmission grids in which their major features are identified. In this vision, each smart transmission grid is regarded as an integrated system that functionally consists of three interactive, smart components, i.e., smart control centers, smart transmission networks, and smart substations. The features and functions of each of the three func- tional components, as well as the enabling technologies to achieve these features and functions, are discussed in detail in the paper. Author: Fangxing (Fran) Li (M’01-SM’05) received the Ph.D. degree from Virginia Tech in 2001. He was with ABB, Raleigh, NC, as a Senior and then a Principal Engineer for four and one-half years. He has been an Assistant Professor at the University of Tennessee (UT), Knoxville, since August 2005. His research interests include energy market, reactive power, distributed energy and distribution systems, re- liability, and computer applications. Dr. Li is a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of North Carolina.