System Protection Schemes (SPS) in the Norwegian electricity grid

System Protection Schemes (SPS) are used extensively in the Norwegian electricity grid. The SPS take measures in critical situations to ensure that the operation of the network can continue without disruption, such as if a faulty component causes the power flows in other parts of the network to increase above the safety limits. Using SPS is also a way to increase the network's capacity. To reduce the risk of unintentionally trigger an SPS mitigative action, the SPS should preferably be disarmed in operational situations when there is no need for their protection. The operators of the Norwegian transmission grid continuously assess the risks in the electricity grid and manually activate the SPS if there is a need for it.

Increasing complexity

The increased electrification of society places new demands on capacity and operational reliability in the electricity grid. This in turn requires more protective measures such as SPS, which increases the complexity of the electricity grid. The process of manually assessing whether the SPS should be armed or not becomes more challenging as the complexity of the grid increases.

New methods and automation

The project aims towards the Norwegian transmission grid owner Statnett´s long-term goal of creating a foundation for automated solutions so that the most suitable SPS will be armed when needed, and only then. This means developing new methods and interfaces to support operator decisions as well as solutions for automating the decisions about which SPS should be armed, the extent of their mitigative measures and their dependencies. The project will also investigate possible future uses of SPS.

RISE is responsible for the sub-projects that concerns developing a smart interface for the operators and developing methods to automate decisions about which SPS should be active in certain operational situations and the extent of the mitigative measures.