There have been considerable changes in today’s power systems in recent years, due, in large part, to the emergence of competition and deregulation in power industries. The goal of deregulation is to provide the customer with reduced costs. The global competition between utilities leads to utility cost-cutting, downsizing, and reducing maintenance on both transmission and distribution systems. Power systems that are hierarchically integrated | 19 Flexible Reliable and Intelligent Electrical Energy Delivery Systems Alexander Domijan Jr. Introduction University of Florida The Concept of FRIENDS Zhidong Song What Is FRIENDS Quality Control Centers Intelligent Function of FRIENDS University of Florida Development of FRIENDS The Advanced Power Electronic Technologies within QCCs Distribution Static Compensator Dynamic Voltage Restorer Solid-State Breaker Significance of FRIENDS Realization of FRIENDS Conclusions Introduction There have been considerable changes in today s power systems in recent years due in large part to the emergence of competition and deregulation in power industries. The goal of deregulation is to provide the customer with reduced costs. The global competition between utilities leads to utility cost-cutting downsizing and reducing maintenance on both transmission and distribution systems. Power systems that are hierarchically integrated are separated such that tasks normally carried out within traditional organizations have been open to competition whenever practical and profitable. This process which is called unbundling consists of unbundling of vertically integrated utilities unbundling of functions within a corporation and service unbundling. As a consequence the common structure in the deregulated power industry is the separation of the generation transmission and distribution business into separate entities. There is however a possible drop in service quality as a result of deregulation. Additionally installation and penetration of distributed generators DGs and distributed energy storage systems DESSs allocated in the demand-side of power systems have been increased. Unexpected power quality problems may occur because these distributed facilities are operated independently and are uncommitted to the operating situation of power systems. Power quality issues have become more important in the face of this open competition. In recent years there
