The Grid Protection Alliance (GPA) is a not-for-profit corporation formed to facilitate and support the development and deployment of comprehensive electric energy system-wide solutions and enhancements to electric sector security through integrated, adaptable, collaborative and rapidly-evolving programs of threat identification and analysis and infrastructure research, development, demonstration and technology transfer. GPA focuses on improvements to electric energy resiliency and maintenance of reliability and availability. The efforts will accommodate the evolving technology of electric energy systems including Smart Grid development and deployment, advanced generations sources and enhanced systems integration.
Grid Solutions
The Grid Solutions Division of GPA develops open source software applications to meet the specific demands of real-time data collection and storage to support electric grid operations and planning.
GPA products are hosted in the CodePlex open source project community provided by Microsoft. GPA maintains product documentation and code at the CodePlex project locations shown to the right of each GPA product title below. For those who which to contribute code, GPA has published coding guidelines.
GPA's current product focus is on synchrophasor applications. Synchrophasors are GPS time-stamped measurements taken rapidly (at least 30 times per second) from different points on the power grid. These measurements are transmitted in real-time to operations centers where they provide information on the state and health of the power system.
Synchrophasor information can be used to monitor power flows on the electric grid and to identify areas or conditions where problems exist. Learn more about synchrophasors from the October 2010 NERC report, “Real-Time Application of Synchrophasors for Improving Reliability.”
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Get hands on experience ! Plan to attend now. |
2013 GPA User's Forum August 13-14
North American Electric Reliability Corporation |
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openPDC – Phasor Data Concentrator - http://www.openPDC.com/ to download executables and source code. Version 1.5 Service Pack 1 Improvements A phasor data concentrator collects phasor data from hundreds of measurement units installed on power transmission lines, aligns the data by GPS time-tag, and creates a single time-synchronized dataset that is forwarded on to other software applications. See: openPDC Overview. |
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openPG – Phasor Gateway - http://www.openPhasorGateway.com/ to download documentation, executables and source code. Phasor Gateways securely and efficiently exchange phasor data among utility grid operating entities. The production version of the openPG Version 2.0 was released in March 2013. See: The business case for using phasor gateways. For an overview of the approach for openPG configuration, see An Overview of the openPDC and copies of openPG Manager Screens. |
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openHistorian 2.0
– Time-Series Data Archive -
http://www.openHistorian.com/ A historian, like the openHistorian, is a software application that is optimized to store large volumes of time-stamped operational data quickly and efficiently. The openHistorian 1.0 is included with the openPDC and openPG and can be used to store measurement data. The openHistorian 2.0 is being redesigned from the ground up to support the full range of data types with larger and more precise timestamps. The openHistorian 2.0 will also include lossless compression that can significantly reduce physical storage requirements. Some additional work has been done through an APRA-E grant for Robust Adaptive Topology Control. Texas A&M is the prime receipient for this award. |
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openEDA – Enterprise Disturbance Analytics - Go to http://openFLE.codeplex.com/ to download executables and source code. openEDA is an extensible platform for processing event files from disturbance monitoring equipment such as DFR's and power quality meters. Based on the waveform data in these files and on user-provided transmission line parameters, one of the functions that openEDA provides is determination of the fault type and location. openEDA includes code developed in 2012 under the auspices of EPRI on openFLE (See: http://EPRIopenFLE.codeplex.com/ and openFLE Overview. EPRI's openFLE development included creation of an open source C# parser for power quality files (IEEE 1159.3-2003). Version 1.0 of openEDA is being tested at TVA and represents a major upgrade to openFLE to automate the platform and to enable it be integrated easily within multiple utility environments. See: openEDA Overview. |
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SIEGate – Secure Information Exchange Gateway for Electric Grid Operations - http://SIEgate.codeplex.com/ GPA is the prime contractor on a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) project to develop a secure exchange information gateway (SIEGate) for the bulk electric system. Partners in this effort include the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Pacific Northwest National Labs, Alstom-Grid and the PJM Interconnection. The SIEGate project is part of DOE’s Cybersecurity for Energy Delivery Systems (CEDS) Program that is under DOE’s Office of Electricity Delivery & Energy Reliability. See: SIEGate Overview and SIEGate Poster. |
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openPDClite – Phasor Data Concentrator (light footprint)
- http://www.openPDC.com/
to download source code. The openPDClite is a useful tool for anyone interested in developing adapters or extensions to the openPDC. Orginally assembled by Washington State University (WSU) and now maintained by GPA as an on-going part of the openPDC solution, openPDClite removes the complexity of dealing with the full scope of openPDC features and speeds both the adpater development and adapter test processes. In addition, if special purpose appliances -- such as the WSU oscillation detection tool -- are built from the openPDC, use of the openPDClite core enables the performance of these appliances to be optimized. |
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Time Series Framework - GPA products are built on two foundational C# libraries hosted as CodePlex projects:
1) GPA's Time Series Framework -
http://timeseriesframework.codeplex.com/
Both projects consist of hundreds of class libraries that extend and expand the functionality included in the 4.0 .NET Framework. GPA is a major contributor to the TVA Code Library and is among its project coordinators. |
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The Grid Solutions Framework (GSF) - A combination of new features, Time Series Framework, and TVA Code Library. http://gsf.codeplex.com/ In creating the GSF, new code components have been added and the existing libraries have been refactored to make this integrated framework more secure and significantly better performing as these libraries have been assembled using the 4.5 .NET framework. |
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PMU Connection Tester – http://pmuconnectiontester.codeplex.com/ to download executables and source code. GPA's PMU Connection Tester can be used to verify data streaming from devices that transmit synchrophasor data in the following phasor data procols: IEEE C37.118 R1, IEEE 1344, BPA PDCstream, SEL Fast Message, FNET streaming data protocol and Macrodyne (Type M) |
Presentations from GPA User's Forum - August 21-22, 2012 |
