EET&D: First of all, congratulations on SEL’s 25th anniversary! Having been at the forefront of power system protection innovation twenty-five years ago this must be an exciting time for you given all of the new challenges our industry is facing. How would you characterize your posture as a company that is probably going to play an integral role in transforming the grid for the next quarter century and beyond?

Dr. Schweitzer: Creativity, extensive research, attention to customer needs, and a wealth of power system automation, communications, and cybersecurity expertise drive our research and development processes. Our multidisciplinary teams of power, communications, automation, software, mechanical, and electronic design engineers develop products that meet or exceed customer needs for features, functionality, and robustness. These principles remain firmly in place at SEL, so I don’t foresee any major changes in that regard. What I do see, however, is an urgent industry need to invest in the future – something that has been lacking in recent years as the industry struggled with deregulation, fiscal uncertainties, rate reviews, market design, security and other distractions from the fundamentals of power engineering.

EET&D: We’re in difficult economic times right now, and as a result, a lot of companies – suppliers and users alike – are looking for ways to cut corners and trim costs as much as possible. What is your view of how the recession is impacting the electric power industry and whether the result will be temporary or longer lasting?

Dr. Schweitzer: There’s always a legitimate incentive to cost-engineer goods and services for maximum efficiency and, of course, profitability, but that only pays off in terms of cutting waste and improving the process.

When it starts cutting into quality, that paints a very different picture. At SEL, we take our commitment to quality very seriously, as demanded by our customers’ very critical applications. All SEL products meet or exceed both national and international testing standards, which we feel is one of the best investments any company can make in their future, especially in tumultuous times like these. And, we back that up with a 10-year worldwide warranty. Fortunately, our pursuit of quality almost always leads to cost savings that we can pass along to our customers, allowing them to benefit not just from lower costs, but also from the improved power reliability that results.

EET&D: Clearly, there is a lot to do if we’re going to transform the grid in ways that will allow it to serve us at least as well as it has thus far. What do you feel needs to happen for the so-called “Grid of the Future” to become reality?

Dr. Schweitzer: The fact is that we and our customers have already been building the grid of the future for a long time. One example is the International Drive project with Progress Energy in Florida, which is a looped distribution system. That is, power can flow in either direction, and we’re tripping and restoring service in just six cycles. That system has already been in service for about a decade. It’s distribution working at transmission speeds – I think that’s pretty smart, so perhaps it would be better to refer to the challenge at hand as enhancing the grid of the future, rather than “creating” it, per se.

EET&D: That brings up another interesting point regarding distributed resources and 2-way power flows. With all the talk about wind, solar and other renewables these days, can you perhaps comment on how these new energy sources will be accommodated?

Dr. Schweitzer: Today, we can integrate, protect, control and monitor distributed energy resources like wind turbines, solar arrays and other intermittent sources. Capabilities including single-pole tripping and closing, directional elements, communications suitable for protection, sag-swell monitoring, power quality, harmonic measurement, fault locating, event reporting, secure communications, precision time, oscillography and more are ready to address the challenges of today and the future.

EET&D: Let’s turn now to a topic that is on everyone’s mind lately and one that is still in a steep climb toward maximum mindshare among utilities of all types, sizes and locations: Security.

Dr. Schweitzer: I have personally stressed the importance of security for SEL relays, communications processors, meters, and other equipment from the very beginning of the company. From our very first products, we have provided two levels of access with separate passwords and alarm contacts, which signal access failures. Security is a way of thinking, a continuous process as important as product features and system architectures. Security awareness, security-in-depth, and good security must be taught and learned for us to succeed. After that, the technology comes in.

Whitehead: Let me be very clear in saying that although technology has a prominent role in threat mitigation, technology alone can’t – and won’t –fix this problem unilaterally. The security picture is much bigger than that. As Dr. Schweitzer pointed out, we have routinely emphasized the importance of security in integrated systems and have published many papers describing the threats, vulnerabilities, and practical mitigation measures. And, as an ongoing priority, SEL University offers a cybersecurity course to educate users about our secure-communications products to improve security awareness at the customer level as well.

Do we design security into our products? Yes, of course, but education about security and heightened awareness is at least equally important.

EET&D: Security is an issue that affects us all in many different ways – both personally and professionally – but overall, in many of the same ways. What, in your opinion, is the most likely path toward effective security threat mitigation?

Dr. Schweitzer: The many security threats today include hackers, disgruntled employees, terrorists and countries with sophisticated information warfare plans and capabilities. We all must recognize our own role and responsibilities in mitigating these threats. As manufacturers, we need to provide safe and secure solutions. Asset owners need to meet their obligations to shareholders and customers. I believe government can help by sharing knowledge of threats and good security practices. Fortunately, there are many simple and low-cost steps that one can take to quickly reduce the threats to the vital assets of our power systems.

EET&D: Can you perhaps give our readers a few examples of what you mean by that?

Dr. Schweitzer: Sure. We’ve developed a list of twelve tips for threat mitigation. I won’t go over all of them here, but one of the most important is knowing all of the paths to your assets That is, making a list of all the ways you normally access them – which includes both physical access as well as electronic or cyber access, where applicable – and then making sure that each path is appropriately monitored and/or restricted to key personnel only. Dave, what is another one that you feel is important to mention here?

Whitehead: Use security features that are present in the equipment, like strong passwords. Password management, of course, goes hand-in-hand with the use of good passwords. Limit access to the assets on a need-to-know basis. Sound security policies should be practiced as a matter of course. Again, a lot of this is common sense and procedural.

EET&D: What about the technical side? Certainly there is a technical dimension to all of this that will help improve security…

Whitehead: Well, naturally there are a lot of technical measures available to support procedural methods. There’s no silver bullet. Different threats call for different kinds of protection: solutions must be designed holistically, not individually. Our solutions scale with applications. For some applications, passwords may provide sufficient security. For other applications where data security is critical, we’ve developed NSA-recognized encryption designed for protection and SCADA communications links.

EET&D: I want to take the last few minutes we have together to ask you about synchrophasors and Phasor Measurement Units – or PMUs as they are often called. PMUs are a relatively new addition to the power engineering toolbox that hold great promise for improving our ability to predict, and hopefully, prevent faults that can lead to major outages, especially those of the kind that caused the Northeast blackout in August of 2004. What can you tell us about how PMUs fit into grid transformation and Smart Grid?

Dr. Schweitzer: We’re at the tipping point for synchrophasors. The result is that we and many of our customers are already transforming the grid. For example, Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) in Mexico is using synchrophasors for the real-time control of generation to respond quickly to line outages. Several utilities and industrials are not only using the protection but also the programming and control capabilities these devices contain to automatically reconfigure their systems, locally and quickly. I like to say we should communicate more and depend on it less, which in turn, drives more localized and automated decision-making.

EET&D: You mentioned CFE in Mexico as one example of where PMUs are already being deployed, but can we assume that we will start seeing these in more projects going forward?

Dr. Schweitzer: Until recently, synchronized phasor measurements were available only from laboratory equipment or from expensive stand-alone phasor measurement units. The expense and need for separate equipment had limited the use of synchrophasors. Today, however, you can get built-in synchronous phasor measurement capabilities when you buy meters and a growing number of relay models. You can even get firmware upgrades that will further extend the reach of the synchrophasors.

Whitehead: I’d like to also add that thanks to microsecond-accurate GPS clocks, precise time is available everywhere today.

One reason our R&D engineers have worked so hard to make synchrophasors ubiquitous is because there are so many things you can do when voltage and current measurements are precisely time-synced. One microsecond corresponds to only about 0.02 electrical degree at 60 Hz, so phase errors in the measurements come primarily from instrument transformers.

EET&D: What kinds of things can we do by migrating to broader use of synchrophasors in the future?

Dr. Schweitzer: These devices have a multitude of applications, some of which are fairly traditional and others of which represent relatively new frontiers. But whether you test or commission protective systems, manage assets, operate control centers, develop models, or analyze power system events, you will find these units to be immensely useful.

One straightforward application is the use of synchronized phasor measurements from your meters and relays to check the instrument transformers within your substation. When the breakers are closed, all line and bus voltage transformers should agree in magnitude and phase.

Another common use is to check CT polarities, phasing and ratio. With a little load on the system and all your relays synchronized, perform Kirchoff’s Current Law around the bus, phase by phase, and you will be able to see any phasing, polarity or ratio errors. And, since synchrophasors are available everywhere today, we can now directly measure the power-system state – and do so quickly. Knowledge of the state is vital in preventing blackouts, and adapting to rapid changes in wind generation, for instance.

EET&D: In closing, what are some of the broader changes you expect to see in the electric power industry over the next few years?

Dr. Schweitzer: One of the changes I think we will see is a move towards distribution systems that can accept load or generation virtually anywhere along the network. One rather creative idea is to integrate idling locomotives as spinning reserves. On a more conventional basis, however, I think we will see a rebirth of nuclear generation and probably more hydro as well, since hydro goes hand-in-hand with wind as what you might call complementary renewables.

Synchronized measurement and operations of the power system including switching events at multiple substations that are precisely controlled in time is another example. Distributed control that intelligently islands – instead of “anti-islanding” – and faster clearing of faults, will result in less reliance on time coordination except for back-up. Customer service and safety will demand this!

I also see more transmission lines being built, and many existing ones upgraded – something that we have desperately needed for a long time. And new tailor-made, wide-area communications solutions that are fast, secure and flexible and that support the need for synchronized control and protection are needed for all of this to come together in a cohesive and efficient way. I realize that’s a pretty tall order, but I have every confidence that we can and will do it. Meanwhile, utilities and industry need to keep educating, training and hiring engineers to create, design and build these systems. I’m sure that many other creative new solutions will arise as we go forward. It’s truly an exciting time to be in the power business!