Bio
Matthew Rhodes is a Principal Engineer in Grid Operations Support at Salt River Project (SRP) in Phoenix, Arizona. He has worked in System Protection at SRP for 13 years improving SRPs synchrophasor network and in SRPs Transmission and Generation Operations group enabling successful synchrophasor application implementation for operations as well as other departments company wide. Matthew serves as Co-Chair for the North American Synchrophasor Initiative Engineering Analysis Task Team and is an SRP EPRI Advisor for program P173: Bulk System Integration of Renewables and Distributed Resources, P94: Energy storage, and contributes to research in program P39.015: Monitoring, Control, and Data Analysis including synchrophasors. Matthew is also an energy storage SME for transmission at SRP.
Abstract
Historically, utilities have resisted the development of new operations technology particularly in the space of identifying hidden system issues. The operations question could well be “We have no problems operating the system now, why do we need this new technology?” The right response could then be “You don’t know what you don’t know!” and, “If you don’t start monitoring dynamic system real time operations, asset performance and other areas, you will never know there is a problem!”
The transition of utilities from historically static system awareness to one requiring dynamic system awareness, particularly with the shift of Inverter Based Resource from system supportive to system critical resources, has allowed for more open dialogue for new technology experimentation and acceptance. We have seen maturing synchrophasor applications such as oscillation monitoring, power plant model validation and dynamic system visualization to meet this shift.
But there still needs to be an organized approach to selling synchrophasor technology to utility management AND engineers to successfully integrate synchrophasor applications. This talk will focus on the approach SRP has taken to successfully move this synchrophasor sales pitch from that of a research novelty to a critical system tool.