ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the criteria that govern the operation of any electric power system: safety, quality, reliability, and economy. Economy energy transactions, reliance on external sources of capacity, and competition for transmission resources have all resulted in higher loading of the transmission system. An energy control center represents a large investment by the power system ownership. Two control centers are normally implemented in an electric utility, one for the operation of the generation-transmission system, and the other for the operation of the distribution system. The chapter describes the former as the energy management system (EMS), while the latter is referred to as the distribution management system. System dispatchers at the EMS are required to make short-term and long-term decisions on operational and outage scheduling on a daily basis. Many software and hardware functions are required as operational support tools for the operator. The chapter classifies these functions in the following manner: base functions, generation functions and network functions.
