ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a Work Domain Analysis (WDA) of the physical, functional and purposeful constraints of transmission grid operation. From least to most abstract, grid operation can be described as coordinating physical electric equipment coupling through transmission links, to maximize efficient power flow while retaining robust dynamic stability. The chapter develops a high-level WDA of power grid operations by interpreting how to describe domain phenomena using four theoretic concepts: functional abstraction, part-whole decomposition, structural means–ends links and topographic/causal links. WDA is the first reported in the literature of the power grid operation domain and has practical and methodological implications. Some implications of the WDA framework are anticipated by on-going visualisation research for wide-area monitoring. WDA has implications for anticipating such information interchange needs between disparate databases in grid control systems. Future work could expand the power grid WDA to finer part-whole detail, particularly of purposes and abstract functions (AF).
