Situational Awareness

About this risk area

Maintaining accurate situational awareness of the grid is vital as the grid moves to more and more intermittent resources. The grid is monitored 24×7 using energy management system (EMS)/supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, which combined with day-ahead studies and hourly studies, will be more critical than ever in anticipating and balancing load and demand, as well as mitigating contingencies (overloads, voltage and stability issues). EMS performance will be crucial to keep these systems not just running (99.99% run-time), but also accurate as we continue this energy transition. 

ReliabilityFirst monitors and studies EMS/SCADA outages with the purpose of sharing these lessons learned throughout our region and with industry. We participate with industry on the EMS Working Group, which reports to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) Event Analysis Subcommittee. Our work is complemented by the annual NERC Monitoring and Situational Awareness Conference. We strive not just to learn from EMS/SCADA outages, but to discover and share best practices when it comes to control center technologies that help operators anticipate and respond to system disturbances. 

Explore situational awareness resources below.