| Abstract |
The fault and maintenance management of the power systems, providing the energy needed to keep the switching systems functioning, is still mainly based on the use of brute force even if there are available intelligent solutions. The situation is, however, changing. One reason for that have been the natural disasters experienced in the USA and Europe, which caused largescale disruption of road and rail transport as well as electricity supplies. The result was deep uncertainty about the capacity of the power systems to keep on functioning, etc. There is also other uncertainty which affects the switching system and is, in fact, the reason to use the uninterruptible power supply ( UPS ) systems. It is the uncertainty of the energy supplying capacity of the public power lines. lt is obvious that only the reserve energy in the batteries and in the engine alternators can reduce it. The physical power system and even the people maintaining it will increase the uncertainty. This paper will study from the conceptual, philosophical and hardware viewpoint how the chosen uncertainty level (i.e. corresponds to the amount of the reserve energy) can be ensured and the additional uncertainties reduced utilizing microcomputer technology and distributed decision making in the DC UPS systems and their networks. In addition, there will be suggested an optimal power system concept for the large power systems based on system module idea. |
