Maintain, Enhance, and Improve Reliability of California’s Electric System under Restructuring

California's electric power system is in transition from one that has been centrally planned and controlled to one that will be increasingly dependent on competitive market forces to determine its operation and expansion. Electric networks pose unique challenges resulting from the need to match supply and demand in real-time and the rapid propagation of disturbances throughout the grid. Yet, the transition is incomplete and has led to, among other things, under-investment in grid infrastructure. These challenges are being exacerbated as the existing grid is called upon to support an increased number of market transactions. This project was a five-year program of research and technology development aimed at maintaining and enhancing the reliability of California's interconnected power system by mitigating outages while increasing the system's flexibility for the market-based supply of electric service. The project was organized around five major research areas:

1. Grid of the Future
2. Real-Time System Monitoring and Control
3. Integration of Distributed Energy Resources
4. Reliability and Markets
5. Demand Response (Load as a Reliability Resource)

Each research area, in turn, encompassed multiple research tasks.