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In this paper, we review the functions and architectures of control centers: their past, present, and likely future. The evolving changes in power system operational needs require a distributed control center that is decentralized, integrated, flexible, and open. Present-day control centers are moving in that direction with varying degrees of success. The technologies employed in today's control centers to enable them to be distributed are briefly reviewed. With the rise of the Internet age, the trend in information and communication technologies is moving toward Grid computing and Web services, or Grid services. A Grid service-based future control center is stipulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The power grid is not only a network interconnecting generators and loads through a transmission and distribution system, but is overlaid with a communication and control system that enables economic and secure operation. This multilayered infrastructure has evolved over many decades utilizing new technologies as they have appeared. This evolution has been slow and incremental, as the operation of the power system consisting of vertically integrated utilities has, until recently, changed very little. The monitoring of the grid is still done by a hierarchical design with polling for data at scanning rates in seconds that reflects the conceptual design of the 1960s. This design was adequate for vertically integrated utilities with limited feedback and wide-area controls; however, the thesis of this paper is that the changing environment, in both policy and technology, requires a new look at the operation of the power grid and a complete redesign of the control, communication and computation infrastructure. We provide several example novel control and communication regimes for such a new infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]