Macomber Map Demonstration Michael E. Legatt, Ph.D. Principal Human Factors Engineer mlegatt@ercot.com / 512-248-4232 EPRI Project on Human-Centered Situation Awareness December 10, 2010

All content contained herein, literary, pictorial, graphic or Copyright / Trademark The materials included within the presentation are the intellectual property of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. All content contained herein, literary, pictorial, graphic or otherwise are copyright protected © 2010, ERCOT, Inc., Michael E. Legatt, Ph.D. Macomber Map ©™ All rights reserved. December 10, 2010 EPRI - Human-Centered Situation Awareness

Need for wide-area and high-level views “Alarm storm” “Dust storm” History Need for situation awareness and user experience enhancements in control rooms Blackout of 2003 Main issues: Need for wide-area and high-level views “Alarm storm” “Dust storm” Locations of equipment Navigation between one-lines Naming conventions for equipment Data integration across multiple systems Increased cognitive load as operators increasingly managing more tasks with more complex systems. This trend is only continuing (e.g., advanced metering) December 10, 2010 EPRI - Human-Centered Situation Awareness

History Gary Macomber & Kate Horne performed initial research on the needs in control room in 2005. I started at ERCOT in 2007, working with on UI improvements in the control room, meeting at least once a week with control room operators and other key staff. Over the ensuing years, ongoing prototyping, display building and integrated visualization systems were developed with refinements based on continual user feedback. In 2008, Gary passed away a week before approval to develop one of these prototypes into a new control room UI, and it’s named in his memory – Macomber Map. December 10, 2010 EPRI - Human-Centered Situation Awareness

Macomber Map Macomber Map is a visualization tool – business processes run by the core systems Macomber Map being used in control room, by NERC, FERC, and TRE for monitoring, engineers for studying, training. Focus on situation awareness, configuration to ERCOT control room operators and their needs. Core functionality: Integrates the many data sources in the control room: network model, real-time and study energy data, market data, so that an operator can see all data for single element (e.g., a generator), across applications and systems. A “Google” approach to the transmission grid, allowing operators to locate elements by a series of keywords (e.g., name, county, voltage, owner) Linking all transmission elements to a point on the map, to prevent alarm and dust storms December 10, 2010 EPRI - Human-Centered Situation Awareness

Core functionality (continued) Macomber Map Core functionality (continued) Operating in a pyramid approach, allowing operators to drill down quickly from high-level to detailed data rapidly: “forest and the trees.” Consistent positional awareness, regardless of detail level Linking equipment with ownership and operatorship information for rapid response. When possible, linking problems with potential solutions. Allowing operators to aggregate data within regions (e.g., Hurricane Dolly). Focus on operator needs (e.g., display relative to ambient lighting, color schemes with potential for tobacco-induced decreases in color discriminability) December 10, 2010 EPRI - Human-Centered Situation Awareness

Many departments using tools derived from Macomber Map (over 20) Control room Network modeling group Congestion Revenue Rights (CRR) group MIS Group (Contour map of locational marginal pricing and settlement point pricing) Training group Engineering User Experience improvements Several projects using MM core libraries for quicker development, easier business process integration, significant cost savings to ERCOT. MM Loader, OS Tracer, Contingency Auto-definitions, EMS Tray, CIM Comparison Tool, CIM Indexer, LMP Contour Map, EMS integrated dashboards, December 10, 2010 EPRI - Human-Centered Situation Awareness

Integration with additional systems and data (e.g., TruWind) Ongoing enhancements Integration with additional systems and data (e.g., TruWind) Using MM as a test platform for research, determining optimum color patterns, etc. Increased utility in viewing historical data Additional weather data December 10, 2010 EPRI - Human-Centered Situation Awareness

Macomber Map December 10, 2010 EPRI - Human-Centered Situation Awareness

Macomber Map December 10, 2010 EPRI - Human-Centered Situation Awareness