GUIDING A POWER-SYSTEM RESTORATION WITH AN EXPERT SYSTEM

Our civilization has become so dependent on a steady supply of electric power that a blackout bears an enormous economic cost. Minimizing the amount of time needed to restore a power system helps reduce this cost and the public's resentment over the interruption of service. An expert system can help the operator achieve this goal by providing actualized restoration plans, dependable recommendations and a clear picture of the situation. A hierarchical structure has been adopted for the prototype expert system described in this paper. This structure separates the selection of the next objective (strategic reasoning) from the development of a plan showing how this objective can be achieved quickly adapt its recommendations when a problem arises during the restoration. Planning connection paths through substations of widely different configurations is greatly faciliated by the adoption of a hierarchical description of the topology of these substations. This knowledge representation scheme is the symbolic equivalent of the one-line diagrams used by the operators.