SA Technologies -

Industry Power Systems

Situation Awareness for Power Systems

Today’s highly-interconnected power transmission and distribution systems, previously designed as stand-alone operations, are struggling to overcome the problems of situation awareness failures leading to black-outs due to large power network models, old operator interfaces and inefficient understanding. To operate safely and effectively, high levels of situation awareness (SA) are critical for fully understanding the state of complex and dynamically- changing systems and to project future changes.

There are several significant challenges facing the power transmission and distribution industry preventing high levels of situation awareness.

Dispersed data creating a lack of real-time information on the global state of the system
High false alarm rates leading to a reduced usage of tools
Limited support for diagnostics and projection of future events and contingencies since automation is not integrated into tasks and SA over the state of automation is low
Lack of shared SA across various control centers and reliability coordinators even though systems are inter-related
Technology-centered interface designs that do not relate to the goals of operators
Increased errors in systems which require extra time-consuming tasks

Working in conjunction with AREVA T&D, SA Technologies provides unique, custom-designed solutions for the power systems industry.

Situation Awareness Requirements Analysis determines SA requirements for each operator position and identifies the problems and challenges using the systematic methodology of Goal-Directed Task Analysis.

Situation Awareness Design Solutions develop custom software and workspace solutions using scientific principles of SA-Oriented Design to create effective performance. These operator-centered displays organize information effectively and support key cognitive mechanisms for transforming data into high levels of SA. Integrated interfaces, with one-step actions, allow operators to assimilate and understand information at a glance for rapid action and response.

Situation Awareness Evaluation provides an objective and validated measurement of the level of situation awareness in the control room to determine the impact of new system designs and assess situation awareness problems and vulnerabilities for remediation.

Situation Awareness Training can be customized for the Power Industry to train operators on avoiding situation awareness risk factors and improving Team SA.