Protection Seminar
Each year we offer a one-day professional seminar on a high-interest topic in system protection. This year our Protection Seminar will include 2 topics!
1) Protection of AC and DC Power Grids under High Penetration of Power Electronics-based Resources
Presented by Ali Bidram, Ph.D., University of New Mexico (UNM)
2) Transmission Protection - Not for the Timid: Challenges in Modern Transmission Protection (and Perhaps a Few Solutions)
Presented by Lee Underwood, North American Transmission Forum (NATF)
Monday, February 26
8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. EST/UTC-5
In-Person
Registration fee: $750
Includes lunch
This session is eligible for 0.60 CEUs or 6 PDHs. See "Summit" tab for details on securing 0.2 CEUs or 2 PDHs for attending the Software Summit on Monday evening.
Protection of AC and DC Power Grids under High Penetration of Power Electronics-based Resources
In a modern distribution system, the operation of the conventional protection system can be highly ineffective due to the high penetration of distributed energy resources or different circuit topologies. To tackle these challenges, adaptive protection is a promising solution to effectively modify protection responses in real-time based on the prevailing system conditions. In this seminar, a resilient adaptive protection architecture is proposed. This architecture utilizes a centralized adaptive protection system that is enhanced with local adaptive modular protection (LAMP) units. LAMP units are introduced to guarantee the resilient operation of the protection system under extreme events when the operation of the centralized adaptive protection is compromised. The seminar will elaborate the design and implementation of the adaptive protection system and LAMP units. On the other hand, more recently, DC systems have gained much attention due to a number of advantages. These advantages include higher efficiency and power transfer ratio compared to their AC counterparts, as well as simpler control and operation since in DC systems only voltage and power are the control objectives and reactive power, and frequency of AC systems are not of concern anymore. However, DC systems create new protection challenges compared to AC systems. This is due to the fast transient and high magnitude capacitor discharge currents when a fault occurs, and it is of particular importance to have a fast-tripping protection scheme to avoid damaging the converters. The seminar will cover the development of a fast-tripping protection scheme using traveling waves and presents results from the implementation of this scheme in field.
About Ali Bidram
Ali Bidram is currently an Assistant Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Arlington, USA, in 2014. Before joining the University of New Mexico, he worked with Quanta Technology, LLC, and was involved in a wide range of projects in the electric power industry. His area of expertise lies within the control and protection of energy assets in power electronics-intensive distribution grids. Such research efforts culminated in a book, several journal papers and articles in peer-reviewed conference proceedings, and technical reports. He has received the University of New Mexico’s School of Engineering Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence award, the IEEE Albuquerque section outstanding engineering educator award, the New Mexico EPSCoR mentorship award, the University of Texas at Arlington N. M. Stelmakh outstanding student research award, and IEEE Kansas Power and Energy Conference best paper award.
Transmission Protection - Not for the Timid: Challenges in Modern Transmission Protection (and Perhaps a Few Solutions)
Lee Underwood will provide perspective on several challenges faced by the transmission protection community, such as the impact of ambient-adjusted ratings on relay loadability analysis, protection system redundancy issues, and protection of the interface between transmission and inverter-based facilities. He will introduce several NATF documents that can help transmission protection engineers understand and respond to these challenges.
About Lee Underwood
Lee Underwood is the director of practices for the North American Transmission Forum (NATF). As director, Lee leads a team of program managers in the facilitation of practice groups focused on human performance improvement, substation and transmission lines equipment, operator training, system operations, system protection, security, supply chain risk management, and vegetation management. Lee also manages the activities of the System Protection Practice Group and Asset Management Practice Group. These activities are where he works to cultivate strong relationships with the NATF member subject-matter experts, identify areas of focus for the practice groups, and support these groups in the development of Principles of Operating Excellence and associated practices to promote excellence in the operation of our members’ electric transmission systems.
Prior to joining NATF in 2015, Lee worked for Duke Energy, including six years in nuclear support and 8 years with Duke/Fluor-Daniel. He was engaged in the design and construction of electrical systems for coal-fired power plants. Starting in 2004, Lee served in customer support and R&D with Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories. Lee earned a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from the University of Virginia, a master of business administration degree from Wake Forest University, and a graduate certificate in cybersecurity management from the University of Virginia. He is a registered professional engineer in North Carolina and South Carolina.
