Operation and management of the electric system for industrial plants: An expert system prototype for load-shedding operator assistance

This paper presents the analysis carried out for designing and developing a prototype expert system capable of managing the electrical system of an in dustrial plant. The electric network of the plant, including significant ga s turbine and steam turbine generation facilities, is presented. The modeli ng phase of the system for successive analysis by simulation using a commer cial power system code is also reported, The load-shedding problem is then considered and the related engineering aspects are briefly recalled. The gu idelines for the realization of a load-shedding scheme for industrial elect rical plants based also on advanced artificial intelligence tools such as e xpert systems are proposed. The expert system is used online to prepare loo kup load-shedding tables capable of accounting for actual process condition s. Offline validation of the proposed shedding is then operated by static a nd/or dynamic simulation. The use of a prototype rule-based expert system i s expected to permit the achievement of a better flexibility in the realiza tion of load-shedding schemes for improving the process continuity and mana gement.