Our Services

Power Systems Consulting

Power Quality

Power Systems

Systems Monitoring

Transmission and Distribution System Studies

Wind Energy Consulting

Wind Energy Consulting

Wind Energy Consulting Service Overview

Wind power is the fastest growing source of new electric power generation in the world. The cost of energy from large commercial wind plants in good wind sites is now competitive with that from more conventional sources, and costs are forecast to decline further with future generations of multi-MW turbines.

Large wind plants are complex dynamic systems, comprised of many individual wind turbines interconnected with the transmission grid through an extensive medium voltage collector network. Auxiliary systems and equipment may be employed for reactive power control and voltage regulation within the network or at the point of interface to the transmission grid. Supervisory control systems monitor and direct the operation of individual turbines and auxiliary equipment in real time.

EnerNex has extensive experience with wind turbine technology, wind plant design and operating issues, and technical questions associated with transmission grid interconnection and power system operation. Our years of power systems engineering expertise, along with more than a decade of experience working with wind generation technologies and systems, is unparalleled in the industry. We can assist with almost any power system issue relating to electric system planning, design, and operations relating to wind, including:

Capabilities

Bulk Transmission System Studies - evaluate the impacts of large wind plants on bulk transmission system operations, including steady-state and contingency analysis, impacts on inter-regional power transfer capability, network voltage stability, reactive power requirements and transient stability.

Distributed Wind Plant Integration Studies - assess the influence of smaller distributed wind plants on distribution feeders and local loads, including voltage flicker, harmonics and protection system operation. We maintain feeder simulator and flicker calculations for UWIG’s Distributed Wind Impact Project.

Design and Operational Analysis of Wind Plant Power Systems - evaluate intra-plant electrical systems within large wind plants, focusing on:

Reactive Power Management
Voltage Regulation
System Dynamics including Capacitor Operations and Reactive Power
Generation from Advanced Turbines
Event Analysis to Determine Root Causes
System and Equipment Performance Validation and Design Improvements
Investigations of Equipment Misoperation and Failure

Technology Consulting - provide expert opinion and perspective on wind generation and electrical system technologies, including power electronics and electric machinery for wind turbines and transmission and distribution system equipment.

Monitoring and Information Systems - specify, design, install and operate data acquisition systems for collecting, analyzing, and reporting on plant operations.

Special Studies - use sophisticated simulation and analysis tools to conduct specialized and custom studies of new technologies for wind generation applications, including advanced power electronics systems for wind turbine and electric power system applications.

Our staff has extensive experience working with a wide range of clients on wind issues. Our client list includes:

the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Electric Reliability Council of Texas
Sacramento Municipal Utility District
Xcel Energy
Public Service Company of New Mexico
Vestas-Americas Wind Technologies
GE Wind

Completed projects include:

Interconnection studies required by regional reliability councils and individual utilities for approval of requests to interconnect with the transmission system.
Transmission capacity and voltage stability studies, which can be critically important for wind plants located in sparsely populated areas remote from large load centers.
Investigations of wind plant operating problems, including distribution feeder voltage unbalance and regulation, nuisance turbine transformer failures, induction generator self-excitation, capacitor bank switching failures, harmonic resonance, high neutral-to-earth potentials on rural utility feeders paralleling wind plant collector feeders, and surge protection equipment failures.
Wind plant and wind turbine electrical system design improvements - improving feeder and turbine voltage regulation, reactive power management strategies, and dynamic thermal rating of transformers for increased capacity.
Technology assessment and evaluation - design projects for state-of-the-art wind turbine and wind plant technology, including advanced power electronics, control technologies, and novel electric machinery.
Technology consulting - expert testimony and analysis in intellectual property and patent matters, and in support of insurance or contractual issues.
Leading-edge research and development - assessing the impact of substantial amounts of wind power on utility control area operations planning and scheduling, determining ancillary services requirements (regulation, load following, reserves) for wind plants, quantifying the value of next-hour and next-day wind forecasting from a control operations perspective.
Detailed simulation and modeling - developing sophisticated electromechanical models of wind turbines, electric machinery, and power electronics elements for time-domain computer simulations to enhance design processes and improve system performance.

In addition to these services, we provide operating and technical support to the Utility Wind Integration Group (UWIG), comprised of utilities, associations, and governmental agencies interested in technical and economic issues related to wind generation. This has helped us to establish and build span working relationships with wind generation providers, customers and others interested in facilitating a growing industry. It has also enabled us to keep tabs on the state of the art in the integration of wind power into electric power systems.

Our staff has extensive experience working with a wide range of clients on wind projects including:

US Department of Energy
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Electric Reliability Council of Texas
Sacramento Municipal Utility District
Xcel Energy
Public Service Company of New Mexico
Vestas-Americas Wind Technologies
GE Wind
Minnesota Department of Commerce
NSTAR Electric and Gas

Smart Grid Engineering

Advanced Metering Infrastructure

Cyber Security

Demand Response

Enterprise Architecture

IEC 61850 Testing

Smart Grid Collaborative

Smart Grid Development

Utility Automation

Utility Communications

Smart Grid Labs

‘Pre-Conformance’/'Pre-Certification’ Testing

Communications

Laboratory and Testing Capabilities

Security

Security Projects

Cyber Security Press:

May 27, 2011, Press release: EnerNex takes next step in reducing cyber attack risks

EnerNex Support of TVA PowerWAN Security Policy

Southern California Edison Utility AMI

Southern California Edison Utility AMI

EnerNex was retained by Southern California Edison (SCE) to provide consulting engineering services in the areas of requirements capture, technology assessment, requirements analysis, and architecture development. This effort is the first part of a planned three-phase program to specify, procure, test, and deploy advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) for SCE’s 4.6 million customers.

We assisted SCE with developing business requirements, examining feasibility of technologies, and cost benefit analysis, which comprise the 18-month first phase of the overall program. The second phase will focus on final development activities, including lab and field testing advanced metering solutions. After successful completion of development and authorization by the California Public Utilities Commission, full deployment of the company’s AMI program could begin in late 2009.

The overall systems engineering approach being taken by SCE is based on the EPRI IntelliGrid Architecture guidelines. Specifically, SCE is using the use-case-based IntelliGrid methodology to ensure that all aspects of an AMI system -meters, communication infrastructure, and enterprise software — are evaluated in a rigorous manner that results in high quality, traceable and defendable requirements.

In the IntelliGrid methodology adopted by SCE, cross-organizational teams developed 18 use cases, or narratives, describing the expected near and long-term use of the AMI system. The teams divided each use case into multiple alternate scenarios and then developed a detailed sequence of steps for each scenario. Finally, the teams translated each step into one or more requirements to be placed on the components of the AMI system. The IntelliGrid methodology permitted teams to map these requirements to specific customer and business needs. EnerNex personnel trained members of the other SCE consulting systems engineering contractor – IBM – in the IntelliGrid methodology. EnerNex lead two of the three requirements capture and analysis facilitator / analysis teams and IBM lead the third.

After an eight-month process involving more than 200 subject matter experts and 40 workshops, SCE released in June 2006 a preliminary set of requirements for its AMI system. These preliminary requirements were used to perform cost-benefit analyses and create an AMI system architecture and design, leading to a complete set of requirements to engage vendors in next generation product development. EnerNex participated in the business case development process using SCE’s business case analysis methodology (as opposed to EnerNex’s own methodology which is similar).

EnerNex’s support of this effort started with implementing a series of workshops with stakeholders to aid in the definition of business requirements, compiling use cases to facilitate requirements definition and the cost/benefit analysis, and support in the identification and examination of possible technologies. EnerNex is also participating in the project’s system architecture and engineering teams, the external technical advisory board, and is facilitating technical information exchange with external groups and projects such as the GridWise Architecture Council, OpenAMI, IntelliGrid, the UCA International Users Group and numerous standards organizations.

Aviat Networks – NERC Critical Infrastructure Protection Standards (CIP 002-009) Support

Consumers Energy AMI Security

U.S. Department of Homeland Security

U.S. Department of Energy – Lemnos Interoperable Security Project

U.S. Department of Energy – Lemnos Interoperable Security Project

AEnerNex is the project lead and prime contractor to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for the Lemnos Interoperable Security Project which is a $3.75M public-private partnership. Lemnos is a multiyear effort under the DOE Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability’s Cybersecurity for Energy Delivery Systems (CEDS) program which supports the Roadmap to Secure Energy Delivery Systems. In addition to EnerNex, the core team supporting the effort includes Tennessee Valley Authority, Sandia National Laboratories, and Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories. Adding to the core team effort is collaboration from additional industry participants in the project including the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Alien Vault, Cisco, Encore Networks, GarrettCom, Industrial Defender, N-Dimension Solutions, Phoenix Contact, RuggedCom, and Siemens.

As project lead of the Lemnos effort, EnerNex’s utilized its comprehensive understanding of the electric utility industry, supporting applications, and technologies along with its extensive cyber security knowledge and ability to facilitate industry collaborative efforts to address the problem set utilizing a requirements based methodology which focused on open standards and interoperability. In this manner, Lemnos is helping to foster the partnership between utilities and vendors by helping the two parties to clearly communicate utility requirements, product features, and configuration parameters relating to cyber security functions.

Project Background
The manner in which the control systems are being designed and operated in the energy sector is undergoing some of the most significant changes in history due to the evolution of technology and the increasing number of interconnections to other system. With these changes however come two significant challenges that the energy sector must face; 1) Cyber security is more important than ever before, and 2) Cyber security is more complicated than ever before. A key requirement in helping utilities and vendors alike in meeting these challenges is interoperability. While interoperability has been present in much of the discussions relating to technology utilized within the energy sector and especially the Smart Grid, it has been absent in the context of cyber security.

The Lemnos project addresses these challenges by focusing on the interoperability of devices utilized within utility control systems which support critical cyber security functions. In theory, interoperability is possible with many of the cyber security solutions available to utilities today. The reality is that the effort required to achieve cyber security interoperability is often a barrier for utilities. For example, consider IPSec, a widely-used Internet Protocol to define Virtual Private Networks, or “ tunnels”, to communicate securely through untrusted public and private networks. The IPSec protocol suite has a significant number of configuration options and encryption parameters to choose from, which must be agreed upon and adopted by both parties establishing the tunnel. The exercise in getting software or devices from different vendors to interoperate is labor intensive and requires a significant amount of security expertise by the end user. Scale this effort to a significant number of devices operating over a large geographical area and the challenge becomes so overwhelming that it often leads utilities to pursue solutions from a single vendor. These single-vendor solutions may inadvertently lock utilities into proprietary and closed systems.

Lemnos is built on the successes of Open PCS Security Architecture for Interoperable Design (OPSAID), a previous DOE National SCADA Test Bed (NSTB) project. It enhances security interoperability by identifying basic cyber security functions based on utility requirements and then selecting open source solutions, namely Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) RFCs, to support these functions. Once identified, specific configuration parameters for each RFC suitable for the electric utility control system environment are identified and documented. These configuration parameters are referred to as Interoperable Configuration Profiles (ICP) and their effectiveness within the utility control systems environment is verified with comprehensive testing as the final step in the process. The project focused on development of ICPs for four security protocols (IPsec, SSH, LDAP, and Syslog) which represent fundamental building blocks which can be utilized for securing utility control systems. These ICPs are product agnostic and can be applied modularly to any device (router, substation gateway, intelligent electronic device, etc.) within the utility control system as the end user deems necessary for their unique system architecture.

As part of the Lemnos industry outreach efforts, the project team is working closely with the SG Security Working Group under the OpenSG Technical Committee of UCA international Users Group. This group has established the Cybersec-Interop Task Force which will serve as long term stewards of the technical work after project completion.

Recent news:
May 24, Cyber Security Interoperability Project Reaches Milestone

Related Documents, Presentations and Links:

DOE Lemnos Flyer
DOE Lemnos Technology Preview
DOE Lemnos Story Brochure
Cyber Security Interoperability – The Lemnos Project – 2010 ISA POWID Symposium
T&D World, “The Secure Connection”
ieRoadmap News – Summer 2010
ieRoadmap News – Quarter 1 2010
Site: www.oe.energy.gov/controlsecurity.htm
Site: www.controlsystemsroadmap.net

AMI-SEC

DNP Secure Authentication

DNP Secure Authentication

EnerNex is the editor and primary author of a specification to provide cyber security to the most popular utility communications protocol in North America, the Distributed Network Protocol (DNP3). This addition to DNP3 provides an open, standardized method for a master station, remote terminal unit, sensor or intelligent electronic device (IED) to verify that any given message was transmitted by an authorized user, and that the message was not tampered with in transit. This specification is an important step forward in securing critical infrastructure in North America, Australia, the UK and elsewhere in the world.

EnerNex has been working with the DNP Users Group Technical Committee and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) to develop this specification since 2005. Version 1.0 of the specification was released in March of 2007. Based on comments from implementers, version 2.0 was released in August 2008 and source code is already available from suppliers. The specification is now in a testing phase sponsored by the Electrical Power Research Institute (EPRI), which will include:

Analysis of the specification by cryptographic experts at U.S. National Laboratories
Security evaluation of the protocol running on desktop computers
Update of the protocol to include a method for online distribution of new keys
Mapping of the mechanism to the IEC 60870-5-101 and -104 protocols popular in Europe and elsewhere in the world
Development of standard RFP language for specifying this feature of DNP3

In 2009, it is intended that this EPRI program will be expanded to include a full pilot test hosted at the U.S. National SCADA Testbed using commercially available DNP3 devices. For further information on participating in this program, click here or refer to the same notice posted on

The DNP Secure Authentication mechanism is based on approved protocols, methods and algorithms from the International Standards Organization (ISO), U.S. National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) and the IEC. EnerNex has spearheaded its development in parallel with, and as a compliant implementation of, the IEC 62351-5 technical specification for utility data communications security in telecontrol networks. DNP Secure Authentication has also been adopted by the Water Industry Telemetry Standards (WITS) group in the UK.

The DNP specification is available to DNP Users Group members on the DNP Users Group web site,www.dnp.org.

A PDF is attached to provide more information on the EPRI sponsored project.

Advanced Security Acceleration Project for the Smart Grid (ASAP-SG)

Advanced Security Acceleration Project for the Smart Grid (ASAP-SG)

ASAP-SG provides all electric utilities uniform access to a greater body of knowledge and expertise than would otherwise be available to any one utility.

EnerNex, along with the utilities of the Open Smart Grid Subcommittee of the UCA International Users Group in collaboration with the US Department of Energy (DOE), the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), and other interested parties, joined to form ASAP-SG.

The project was created to be a utility-driven, public-private collaborative effort to develop recommendations and best practices for architecting, designing, acquiring, integrating, and operating smart grid systems. DOE is helping to support ASAP-SG by matching contributions from utilities dollar-for-dollar.

In January 2011, EnerNex announced the latest deliverables in the ASAP-SG series of Smart Grid related Cyber Security documents which provide prescriptive, actionable guidance for utilities and vendors implementing Smart Grid systems.

The documents, also referred to as Cyber Security Profiles, are part of the 2010 phase of the Advanced Security Acceleration Project for the Smart Grid (ASAP-SG) to accelerate the development of security requirements and standards for the electric utility industry.

In the first phase of the project, three application centric Security guidelines were produced and delivered to the Open Smart Grid Subcommittee and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP) - Cyber Security Working Group covering:

Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI)
Third Party Energy Data Access
Distribution Management

Documents are maintained on http://www.smartgridipedia.org/index.php/ASAP-SG under the Creative Commons 3.0 – Attribution licensing making the work free to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt the work.

There is opportunity for all North American electric utilities to take advantage of DOE funding and the concerted effort of industry stakeholders to produce proper, timely, and cost-effective security best practices for Smart Grid. EnerNex, DOE and EPRI are looking for additional participants to ensure the widest range of requirements are addressed. To get involved and participate in the next phase of the project, please contact EnerNex.

These living documents were made possible through substantial funding by a group of North American utilities in collaboration with the DOE. The project leverages dedicated domain expert resources from EnerNex, EPRI, Consumers Energy, Florida Power & Light, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), Southern California Edison, InGuardians, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

The project is also contributing work to other standards bodies, such as the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 62351 Data and Communications Security, to facilitate and accelerate community Cyber Security efforts. Moving forward, additional Security guidelines are being developed based on utility stakeholder requirements and priorities.

smartgridlabs.com

Our Services

Power Systems Consulting

Power Quality

Power Systems

Systems Monitoring

Transmission and Distribution System Studies

Wind Energy Consulting

Capabilities

Smart Grid Engineering

Advanced Metering Infrastructure

Cyber Security

Demand Response

Enterprise Architecture

IEC 61850 Testing

Smart Grid Collaborative

Smart Grid Development

Utility Automation

Utility Communications

Smart Grid Labs

‘Pre-Conformance’/'Pre-Certification’ Testing

Communications

Laboratory and Testing Capabilities

Security

Security Projects

EnerNex Support of TVA PowerWAN Security Policy

Southern California Edison Utility AMI

Aviat Networks – NERC Critical Infrastructure Protection Standards (CIP 002-009) Support

Consumers Energy AMI Security

U.S. Department of Homeland Security

U.S. Department of Energy – Lemnos Interoperable Security Project

AMI-SEC

DNP Secure Authentication

Advanced Security Acceleration Project for the Smart Grid (ASAP-SG)