Recent Progress

1. We proposed a hierarchical coordination framework for reliability coordinator, transmission operators and utilities, as shown in Figure 3.

Fig. 3
Figure 3. A hierarchical coordination framework for reliability coordinator, transmission operators and utilities

2. We proposed a five-stage coordinated restorage process for T&D&C systems and compared it with existing transmission-oriented restoration process.

Fig. 4
Figure 4. Comparison of procedures for T&D&C restoration and existing transmission-oriented restoration

3. The project team developed an improved “rewiring” method [1] to generate the topology of a synthetic communication system based on a given grid topology and communication system, and created a synthetic communication system for a synthetic 200-bus regional Illinoi grid [2] (See Figure 5)

Fig. 5
Figure 5 A generated synthetic 200-bus grid-communication model

4. We developed a prototype visualization tool for visualizing the grid, communication systems and their interdependence (See Figure 6)

Fig. 6a
(a) side-by-side map views
Fig. 6b
(b) overlay views

                                                                           Figure 6. A grid-communication visualization prototype tool

5. We built an ns-3-based test platform for grid communication networks (See Figure 7) and applied it to analyze communication network performance in terms of communication delays under both normal and storm conditions (See Figure 8)

Fig. 7
Figure 7. NS-3 based communication test platform
Fig. 8
Figure 8. Communication system network performance in terms of delays under both normal and storm conditions