Cooperative approach towards the solution of complex decision problems in energy management and electricity networks

This paper presents the experience of lberdrola (Spain) and EA Technology (UK)in the development and use of expert systems applied to the control/supervision of electricity networks. The need to expand the scope of their existing stand-alone expert system by integrating new information and new capabilities has moved these two companies to enter the emerging area of Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI),joining forces in the ESPRIT project ARCHON the objective of which is to produce a general framework for cooperating expert systems. The main objectives of the lberdrola application are disturbance detection, identification of permanent faults, evaluation of network status, preparation of a restoration plan and tracking of network evolution. The EA Technology application integrates fault diagnosis both at high and low voltage, security analysis, generation of safe switching schedules, lighting detection and collates information between these individual systems. Both applications are structured as a set of semiautonomous heterogeneous agents.