OSPE-FCC April Virtual Program

Date: Thursday, April 21, 2022

Location: Zoom Meeting, 12:00pm -1:00pm

Registration – Registration closes at 5:00 pm, April 19, 2022

Click Here. Be sure to include your membership number.

After registration is closed and prior to the presentation, a Zoom link will be sent to the registrants.

Cost: Free to members of NSPE and members OSPE/FCC.

Title: “The Grid of Tomorrow: IBRs and Microgrids for Power System Stability”

Abstract Microgrids could become essential to reliable power delivery in the near future. As climate change exacerbates extreme weather events, high penetration of Inverter-Based Resources (IBRs) and Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) could contribute to weakening the stability of the grid, if the industry continues to increase these resources without evolving its philosophy of grid protection and control. IBRs are well suited for distributed implementation and could be an effective solution to grid reliability issues, if handled appropriately. With proper planning and sound public policy, design of a system where most distribution circuits can operate as islanded microgrids for extended times, seamlessly disconnect, and reconnect to the transmission grid to help the system stability is within reach. Local governments and municipalities would need to cooperate, perhaps in coordination with federal policy mandates. This presentation displays this vision of the future and presents a patent-pending protection philosophy to complement the existing distribution fuses to isolate faulted branches when islanded.

Biography: Sebastien Billaut, PE is a manager at Commonwealth Associates. Mr. Billaut holds an MS in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering from Ecole Speciale des Travaux Publics in France and a Professional Engineering license. He has 29 years of utility-related engineering experience, including 21 years of setting protection relays and power system modeling and 16 years of management. He is the patent author for a microgrid fault management technology, and actively participates in the development of industry-wide standards that address the design of microgrid protection systems and reduction of outage time on distribution systems. He serves as Chair of the IEEE PSRC Working Group K29 and D44 and is a voting member of IEEE PSRC Subcommittees D (Transmission Line Protection) and K (Substation Protection) and the Main Committee. He is currently contributing to IEEE 1547.x and IEEE 2800.x (multiple main standard related guiding documents).

---------------------------------------------------------------

A certificate for 1 hour of Professional Development for attending the program will be emailed to you.