INL's Power Systems Engineering Department provides full-service capabilities in planning, analysis, design, maintenance, troubleshooting and installation of industrial power and utility systems. Our staff incorporates considerable depth of expertise in electrical power generation and distribution systems; steam, water, fuel and environmental monitoring systems; alternative energy systems; reliability, availability and maintainability assessments; and associated supervisory control and energy management systems. We develop leading-edge technologies and provide independent validation of energy technologies.
This department also supports other agencies. Our greatest strengths are strong technical backgrounds, independent technical skills, applied system engineering skills, reliability skills, long-range planning skills and assessment skills on alternate energy systems.
INL's Power Systems Engineering Department, in cooperation with the varied INL resource base, offers a full complement of applied products and services to deliver real-time solutions for the most demanding power system requirements, including the following:
SCADA design, upgrade and energy conservation improvements
Project Validation and Project Formulation
Independent Design Review
Independent Technical Assessment
Power System Planning
Problem Solving
Power Plant Design
Centralized Utility and Power Plant Supervisory Control Systems
Alternate Energy Import/Export Storage and Supply Systems
High Voltage Monitoring and Diagnostic Systems
New Technology Equipment Test-bed Evaluations
Prototype System Development and Testing
Short Circuit, Load Flow, Coordination & System Stability Analysis
Energy Reduction Assessments & Project Formulation
Emergency Power Systems
Power Plant Efficiency Upgrades
Plant Utility and Energy System Upgrade Planning
Independent Verification and Validation of Energy Technologies
The department has the capability to perform detailed analyses of high- and medium voltage power systems including:
Short circuit analysis
Load flow analysis
Protective device coordination analyses
Reliability, availability and maintainability (RAM) studies
Harmonic current flow analysis
Voltage distortion and resonance analysis
Independent design validation
System assessments
INL's Power Systems Engineering Department also is involved in Power System Component Research and Development. In 1998, department experts won a R&D 100 Award for the Election Optical High Voltage Sensor. That same year, INL's Power System group was part of the Federal System Energy Management Program Small Group Awards for the Ascension Wind Farm, the 2004 Presidential Award for Leadership in Energy Management and the 2004 USAF Citation Design Award for design team work.
