How one group of students tackled the issue of rolling outages

Butler Rural Electric Cooperative partnered with Miami University’s College of Engineering and Computing by sponsoring a senior design project this year. The project allows businesses to work with students to share expertise and engage in real-world project experience. During the project, businesses identify project ideas and provide students with data and resources necessary for the team to develop solutions.

About rolling outages
Butler Rural Electric Cooperative chose the topic of rolling power outages for a group of four students to tackle during the most recent school year. A rolling outage is a temporary power outage that is purposely done. They are called rolling outages because the outage moves from one area to the next so power isn’t out for too long in one location. The purpose of a rolling outage is to balance load and resources on the electric grid to prevent a larger, uncontrolled power outage.

The cooperative chose this topic because the reliability of the national electric grid is under pressure. Existing, reliable generation sources are being shut down prematurely and replaced with generation that’s intermittent in nature. Because of this, supply margins are tight and extreme hot or cold temperatures can put the reliability of the grid at risk. Electric cooperatives in Ohio have more generation than load. We are all connected to the grid, however, which is operated as a market. Everyone could be impacted by regional generation shortages unrelated to our own generation portfolio.

Your cooperative is speaking with elected officials to keep reliable electric sources available to members at an affordable rate. We have also created a communication plan to keep members informed when rolling outages occur and are releasing a backup generator program later this year.

How the project helped our members
Miami University’s students also helped by tackling a project to create an interface within a SCADA environment to manage a rolling power outage. SCADA stands for supervisory control and data acquisition and is a distribution monitoring system that supplies data from substations, feeders, breakers, and switches to maintain our electric system. During the project, the students worked to find a way to provide real-time load information to help the electric system operator manage rolling outages and document the performance of the required load shedding actions.

Campbell received prestigious award
Owen Campbell, a Miami University senior in electrical engineering, excelled on his findings for the project. Owen represented Miami University at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Power and Energy Society, or IEEE PES, Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exposition in Anaheim, California. Owen presenting his project, Rolling Blackouts and Load Shedding – Machine Learning Optimization, and received first place from the IEEE PES in the undergraduate student poster contest.

The conference showcased the latest advancements in transmission and distribution technology. Attendees included professionals, researchers, students, and industry leaders who explore innovations in smart grid technologies, renewable energy integration, power quality, and cybersecurity. “I’m grateful for attending such a powerful networking and educational event full of those interested in shaping the future of energy transmission and distribution,” said Owen. In June, Owen began his career at POWER Engineers in Cincinnati. He will work as an engineer, designing substations.