Power system operations and control

Power system operations is a term used in electricity generation to describe the process of decision-making on the timescale from one day (day-ahead operation) to minutes prior to the power delivery. The term power system control describes actions taken in response to unplanned disturbances (e.g., changes in demand or equipment failures) in order to provide reliable electric supply of acceptable quality. The corresponding engineering branch is called Power System Operations and Control. Electricity is hard to store, so at any moment the supply (generation) should be balanced with demand ("grid balancing"). In an electrical grid, the task of real-time balancing is performed by a regional-based control center, run by an electric utility in the traditional (vertically integrated) electricity market. In the restructured North American power transmission grid, these centers belong to the balancing authorities, of which 74 existed in 2016. The entities responsible for operations are also called independent system operators or transmission system operators. The other form of balancing resources of multiple power plants is a power pool. The balancing authorities are overseen by reliability coordinators.

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