Database methods in power system control centres

Abstract

Historically, the electric power industry has used computer systems in energy control centres to monitor and control power system devices. Little heed was paid to the efficient management of the databases for evolving applications such as system security studies, extensive data storage and retrieval, and reporting functions. As these applications have grown in importance, however, vendors have developed and supplied ad hoc software for managing the databases, thereby increasing their practical usefulness. Current practices in database management are summarized and proposed approaches now in their early development stages are considered.