A power system must be monitored and controlled around the clock. The production of electricity must correspond to consumption at all times. At the same time, Vattenfall must ensure that its various power plants are being exploited optimally. In order to achieve this, there is Power Control, a unit developed for – and sometimes ahead of – its time. For example, one of the technologies developed for Power Control was of importance for the basis of the Internet.
In the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, there was only an operating engineer in charge at Power Control during the day, with someone on call at night, first at home and later at an apartment situated at Power Control. Before the night, a night order was given to a suitable power station with the task of maintaining the frequency, i.e. the balance between consumption and production, with the help of its own and other stations.
When Vattenfall’s head office was moved to Råcksta in 1962, a three-shift pattern was introduced for control engineers. Frequency maintenance and production changes could then be handled by Power Control around the clock. The telephone was still used to order the starting, stopping or regulating of hydroelectric power. The frequency responsibility also came to include the entire Nordic area, as the countries were increasingly connected up by power lines and cables.But things did not always go well. One evening, a young operating engineer, Gunnar Ålfors, plunged the Norwegian capital Oslo into darkness by issuing an incomplete order to the operation centre in Stenkullen. Next morning he thought he would receive a serious telling-off. However, the manager, Lars Gustafsson, said that he had once plunged Copenhagen into darkness in the same way. So Gunnar was forgiven. The fact that Gunnar wrote a new instruction that removed the risk of the same thing happening again may also have contributed to his being forgiven. All Lars had to do was sign it. Multi-year, annual and seasonal planning was performed at the head office, while the power balance for the next week was done by one of a handful of very experienced engineers, known as “yellow” operating engineers. Daily planning was handled by two of them. One of them was in place all the time, so there were many hours of work, as two people had to share the week’s 168 hours. They were constantly on duty and slept at night in an apartment next to Power Control if nothing remarkable happened.
They were also responsible for operation of the main grid. He (for it was always a he) was also involved in all the electric power business with other electricity producers both within and outside Sweden. Pricing was based on the principle of equal shared profit.
Power Control was at its busiest during disruptions. During such events, attention from the outside world, particularly the media, was great. The same was true in extreme weather conditions that affected the power balance.
TIDAS contributed to the development of the Internet! Asea had actually found a solution to the issue of how the route should be controlled (adaptive routing) for information packets (packet switching). They refined the solutions produced in the ARPA net, the experimental network between a number of American universities that is usually considered the origin of the Internet.TIDAS was inaugurated by the Swedish Minister of Energy in 1977, eight years after Vattenfall began to draw up the tender documents. For Power Control, TIDAS represented a revolution. It was no longer necessary to obtain information over the phone. Instead, all the information was directly accessible. TIDAS also meant computerised storage and processing of operational data, printout of daily reports and financial settlement.
After electricity market deregulation and establishment of a Nordic power exchange in 1996, traditional duties were expanded for Power Control to include submitting purchase and sale bids to the exchange. In addition, bids for up and down regulation of production were submitted to SvK on the ‘balance market’.
The increasing volume of renewable and variable production, mainly wind, now sets new requirements for Power Control. But new requirements are something that Power Control has always had to adapt to, so the expertise and familiarity is in place.