Power Systems in Emergencies: From Contingency Planning to Crisis Management

International Journal of Electrical Engineering Education, Oct 2001 by Kirschen, Daniel

U. G. Knight, Power Systems in Emergencies: From Contingency Planning to Crisis Management Wiley, 2000, 378 pp., L65.

Power systems in industrialised countries have achieved a truly amazing record of reliability. Occasionally however, a major incident does occur, millions of people are left in the dark, factories shut down, communications are perturbed and until the electricity supply is restored the fabric of society seems very fragile. Utilities therefore devote a considerable amount of resources and effort to the prevention of such incidents. For their part, over the last few decades, researchers have developed increasingly sophisticated analysis techniques to be able to detect situations under which the power system becomes more vulnerable. Some of these papers give the impression that power system security is just an interesting example for testing esoteric new methods.

In this book, drawing on his many years of experience, Dr Knight takes a completely different approach. Mathematical modelling is relegated to the appendix and the body of the book is devoted to a discussion of the many factors that define, influence and complicate emergencies in power systems. The result is a book that summarises an enormous amount of practical information on the actual behaviour of power systems. I found the chapters dealing with emergency controls and with the measures used to minimise the impact of disturbances particularly interesting. There is also a very thorough chapter on the environmental factors that often cause disturbances and a review of a number of major incidents that have taken place around the world over the last twenty years. A complete chapter is devoted to power system restoration, a topic on which Dr Knight has done a considerable amount of work over the years.

In summary, this is an excellent book that will be extremely useful to young researchers who want to understand the reality behind the mathematical modelling and for more experienced engineers who need to check facts, procedures and practices.

Daniel Kirschen UMIST