The REAL-SMART project is funded by the Marie Curie FP7 IAPP (Industry Academic Pathways and Partnerships) scheme. It started in September 2010.

REAL-SMART REAL-SMART will address measurement-based monitoring and management of high voltage transmission grids. It involves transmission system operators (Fingrid, National Grid and Statnett), companies that supply technologies (ABB R&D in Norway, Poland and Switzerland, GE Research in Munich), and universities (Aalto University, Imperial College London, Graz University of Technology).

The consortium is interdisciplinary with experts in electrical power systems, modelling, instrumentation, signal analysis and condition monitoring, and automation of oil & gas and chemical processes.

Detailed scientific and technical objectives for the project

  1. To develop systems for enhancing power transmission system security by:
    • converting wide-area measurements into information about real time performance and operation of the transmission system;
    • detecting emerging problems at an early stage and quickly localizing the root cause;
    • initiating control action for operation in a confident and robust manner;
    • supporting advanced planning and operations to relieve bottlenecks and increase throughput.
  2. To discover how to quantify the dynamic impact of wind generation on the grid by means of wide area measurements.
  3. To investigate, understand and quantify the dynamic impact of heavy industrial loads on the grid, and the effect of grid dynamics on the industrial loads.
  4. To modify grid planning methods in such a way that they take better into account the installed large scale wind power.

Publications

Contact us

Nina Thornhill, ABB/RAEng Professor of Process Automation
Centre for Process Systems Engineering
Department of Chemical Engineering
Imperial College London
South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ

Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 6622
Email: n.thornhill@imperial.ac.uk