We are speaking with Richard Dewey, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer of the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO). The company is among the leaders on the continent working to prevent an occurrence like the 2003 Northeast Blackout from ever happening again. Under his leadership, the NYISO Information Technology Group has been spear-heading smart grid initiatives in concert with the U.S. Department of Energy.
EET&D : 2013 marks the 10th anniversary of the 2003 Northeast Blackout. What are some of the key initiatives NYISO/NYS have undertaken to help avoid another similar event from happening in the future?
Dewey : In 2010, the NYISO announced it would administer and participate in a statewide, $75 million, federally backed smart grid initiative to improve grid reliability and operators’ capabilities to monitor real-time conditions. The initiatives were supported by a U.S. Department of Energy Smart Grid Investment Grant (SGIG) of more than $37.8 million, funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. That project was completed in June of this year.
Concurrently, the NYISO embarked on a major infrastructure program that included construction of a new, state-of-the-art power control center adjacent to its headquarters building, near Albany, N.Y. Completion of that project is scheduled for this November.
Completion of the smart grid and control center projects strengthens the NYISO’s ability to fulfill its core mission of maintaining reliability of the state’s bulk power system.
EET&D : Describe the key elements of the NYS SGIG initiative.
Dewey : As part of the ARRA, the DOE provided smart grid grants to independent system operators, transmission companies and other U.S. utilities to install more than 800 networked phasor measurement units (PMUs) that rapidly measure and report system conditions.
As the grant recipient and administrator for New York’s SGIG program, the NYISO worked with the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) and the state’s eight transmission-owning utilities and power authorities to deploy PMUs in 41 substations throughout the state. New York’s SGIG program also supported the deployment of new capacitors at 234 locations across the state to improve the control and coordination of voltage on the New York power grid. These capacitors will improve the efficiency of the bulk transmission system by reducing the amount of electricity that is lost when carried over long distances—thus reducing electricity costs in New York by approximately $7.6 million per year.
EET&D : What are some of the benefits and capabilities of the PMU technology?
Dewey : In the final report on the 2003 blackout from the U.S. – Canada Power System Outage Task Force, the installation of PMUs was one of the key recommendations for minimizing the likelihood and impact of future grid disturbances. The report also identified the potential use and benefits of telemetry data if the PMUs were networked, time aligned and streaming into control rooms. The term synchrophasor measurement unit was coined to point out that the ‘time synchronization’ in these products adds value into the telemetry data being collected. The analysis of the PMU data collected after the 2003 blackout was severely hindered because there was no common time source for the devices deployed at that point in time. The installation of new PMUs and integration of the data provided will improve grid operators’ visualization capabilities and situational awareness.
By placing PMUs throughout the country, regional system operators can better assess grid disturbances that have the potential to be wide ranging and affect other areas of the country and potentially prevent large-scale outages like the 2003 Northeast regional blackout before they occur. PMUs are considered to be the ‘eyes and ears’ of the grid system, providing operators real-time feedback on grid conditions. The technology is designed to relay system conditions at a rate of 60 times per second – 360 times faster than previously available. As a result, the PMU network will improve grid operators’ ability to more quickly detect irregularities, predict problems and take corrective action to maintain reliability.
EET&D : What is the status of New York’s SGIG-funded smart grid upgrades?
Dewey : Final installation of the PMUs and capacitor banks was completed in June 2013. When New York’s PMU network is connected with neighboring grid operators, it will provide broader situational awareness of grid conditions throughout the eastern United States and Canada. Following completion of the equipment installation, the NYISO will continue to report to the DOE on the results of the SGIG projects for an additional two years.
EET&D : Discussions about smart grid technology inevitably lead to questions about cybersecurity. What kind of measures is NYISO taking to address concerns about cybersecurity?
Dewey : Cybersecurity is a serious concern that requires constant, sustained vigilance. The NYISO has included cybersecurity reviews and assessments as part of the SGIG project. Each utility has its own policies pertaining to both physical and cybersecurity, and systems developed as part of the SGIG project have been designed and installed to comply with these policies.
EET&D : Please describe the importance of the new primary power control center.
Dewey : The 64,000-square-foot control center will serve as the primary operations center for the NYISO. The new facility is being developed to replace the existing, 42-year-old control center in western Albany County. The older site’s systems will be upgraded as part of this effort, satisfying the requirement of having a fully functional primary and backup control center.
The new control facility is designed to meet 21st century grid reliability requirements through the use of the latest control technologies and advanced visual displays designed to improve the NYISO’s ability to receive, process and monitor changing conditions throughout the region.
The new control center’s 2,300-square-foot video wall is North America’s largest utility industry installation. Its 100, 80-inch diagonal LED screens are stacked 25 wide by four high, spanning a space 131.5 feet wide and 18.3 feet tall.
Its central section of display screens will feature a single-line system representation of the New York Control Area, providing more than 3,000 live status points presenting line flows, line limits, transformer loading, voltages and generator output. Two arrays bordering the center display will show regional electric system information, weather and lightning-strike data, load forecast and other information that can be customized to assist operators to forecast and mitigate potential system disturbances.
With improved digital data capacity, the new control center equips the NYISO to better integrate renewable resources, such as wind and solar power systems. It also will help to address the additional responsibilities resulting from the interregional coordination involved in the NYISO’s Broader Regional Markets initiative, the growing need to coordinate natural gas system operations with the electric system and the increased span of control required by the expanded definition of the bulk electric system by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
EET&D : Finally, what are some other key NYISO priorities not covered by the federal ARRA-SGIG initiative?
Dewey : There are a number of key priorities and challenges, including: continued progress with our neighboring regions on the ‘Broader Regional Markets’ initiative that will expand competition and enable grid operators in the region to better respond to dynamic market and operating conditions across their borders by broadening the pool of available resources; upgrading the transmission system to address aging infrastructure and remedy limitations on power flows to high-demand regions of the state; implementing FERC Order 1000 and meeting the requirements for a regional transmission planning process that includes consideration of public policy requirements and allows competitors to make new transmission system investments; maintaining adequate supplies of power resources as older, less economic generation retires and new power technologies are developed; managing the impact of increased natural gas supplies and growing power system reliance on generating facilities fueled by natural gas; and implementing a new capacity zone to ensure the NYISO’s capacity market provides appropriate and accurate price signals to market participants in order to preserve reliability in an economically efficient manner.
EET&D : We are very grateful Richard that you have been able to take some time from what I can bet is a crazy schedule to speak with us. The Blackout must certainly rank high on many peoples lists of what they never wish to see repeated. It’s good to know major operations like NYISO are at the forefront seeing a calamity like that doesn’t hit again.
About the interviewee
Rich Dewey is Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer of the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO). The NYISO Information Technology Group is responsible for delivering IT products and services to evolve the wholesale electricity markets; development, deployment, support, and maintenance of all NYISO software; managing compliance of software and systems with the federal tariffs governing the NYISO; technical design, support and maintenance of the NYISO’s communications systems and its computing infrastructure; and maintaining the NYISO’s physical facilities and enterprise security.
He was promoted to the Senior VP & CIO position in April 2010, having served as VP & CIO since 2008. He has also served as the NYISO’s Director of Product & Project Management, Manager of IT Strategic Software Development and Manager of IT Quality Assurance.
Before joining the NYISO in 2000, Mr. Dewey worked as an IT manager for Husky Injection Molding Systems in Pittsfield, Massachusetts and as a manager of corporate network services for the Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation in Syracuse, New York.
He earned a Master of Science degree in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York.
