IEC 60870-6
A typical national power grid includes a hierarchy of control centres to manage the generation, transmission, and distribution of power throughput the grid:
one or more system control centres, responsible for scheduling of power generation to meet customer demand, and for managing major network outages and faults.
generation control centres, responsible for managing the operation of generating plants (coal-fired, natural gas, nuclear, solar, wind, etc), and for adjusting the power generated according to the requirements of the system control centre.
transmission control centres, responsible for the transmission of power from generating stations to network distributors.
distribution control centres, responsible for the distribution of power from the transmission networks to individual consumers.
Prior to the development of electronics and telecommunications networks all co-ordination between control centres was carried out by telephone. However, the development of SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems allowed remote control and monitoring of electrical plant from centralised control centres.
