Wide Area Monitoring, Protection, and Control (WAMPAC) a Necessity for Secure Monitoring Operation – Kjell Petter Myhren, Statnett & Geir Borse, Unicus+auticon Norway
Event Recap: LF Energy Summit Europe 2025
TL;DR
At LF Energy Summit Europe 2025, Kjell Petter Myhren of Statnett and Geir Borse of Unicus+auticon Norway discussed Wide Area Monitoring, Protection, and Control (WAMPAC) for future grid monitoring and operation. The session explored how PMU data, time synchronization, visualization, and open source research platforms can help operators and researchers better understand grid behavior as monitoring needs become more complex.
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Why Future Grid Monitoring Needs Higher-Resolution Data
Myhren opened by describing Statnett’s role as Norway’s transmission system operator. Statnett operates the transmission grid in Norway, works closely with Nordic partners in Sweden, Denmark and Finland, and also has subsea cable connections to the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Denmark and Germany.
He framed the presentation around a central operational question: as power systems change, how can operators better understand what is happening on the grid? Myhren referred to recent European grid events as motivation for improving the information available to operators.
The presentation described how Norway’s power system is still largely based on hydropower, but wind and solar generation are increasing. Myhren said this is not unique to Norway. As more solar and wind enter power systems, operators need to manage grids that behave in new ways.
That shift changes monitoring requirements. Myhren explained that future operation will require monitoring at much higher time resolution than is common today. He said this creates new requirements for data infrastructure, data quality, anomaly detection, and time synchronization.
Using PMU Data for Wide Area Monitoring
A major part of the session focused on phasor measurement units, or PMUs. Myhren said Statnett has installed around 150 PMUs in its grid. These devices provide high-resolution measurements that help operators understand grid behavior across large geographic areas.
Because Norway’s grid spans long distances, Myhren emphasized that time synchronization is crucial when comparing data across a wide area monitoring system. He also noted that transferring and managing high-resolution data creates infrastructure challenges that must be addressed before the information can be used reliably in control room operations.
During the Q&A, Myhren clarified that Statnett’s PMUs are currently used in back office systems. Moving PMU values into the control center is a different challenge because the reliability of the PMUs and supporting databases must be sufficient for control room use.
The session presented WAMPAC as part of a broader effort to help operators detect issues more effectively, understand root causes and support future monitoring and operation.
Improving Operator Visibility Through Visualization
Myhren also discussed research carried out with Nordic partners to explore how operators in Sweden and Norway could use a shared system and user interface to collaborate more effectively, see similar alarms, and access similar operational views.
The presentation highlighted several visualization concepts intended to help operators better understand grid behavior. Myhren showed examples designed to make oscillations easier to interpret and to help identify root causes alongside conventional alarms.
Another concept used techniques from gaming interfaces. Instead of navigating through many separate screens, operators could move through one interface and click on areas of interest, with information appearing as needed. Myhren said this made information easier for operators to access.
The visualizations also showed how subgrids and regional grids connect to the transmission grid, which can help TSOs and DSOs better understand system relationships. Additional examples included visualizing voltage stability margins, detecting islanding, showing frequency differences between islands and identifying which lines or assets were most affected by oscillations.
From Research Models to Open Source Development
Myhren explained that the research work included simulations using grid models, simulated PMU data, and historical data. The work also incorporated technologies including Kafka, Python, and GitLab.
He also described work on corrective action recommendations that could help operators identify appropriate responses when grid conditions change.
The presentation positioned this work as a way to improve how information is presented to operators and to support future operation as the grid changes. Myhren also pointed to public videos produced with research partners that show examples of visualizing voltage stability, oscillations, TSO coordination and corrective actions.
The technical approach remained framed as research and development rather than completed control center deployment. During the Q&A, Myhren said the project had run for about four years as a Nordic project and had now ended, with work being handed over for further development.
Building a Research Platform for Collaboration
Borse then described how Unicus+auticon Norway is working with Statnett to build a system for WAMPAC and a platform that allows Statnett to test research hypotheses and open source software implementations.
He explained that the team looked at CERN’s open data platform as inspiration for enabling outside researchers to work with large data sets. In Statnett’s case, the challenge is different because the data is confidential. The platform therefore needs to support external research collaboration without exposing the underlying platform or confidential grid data beyond approved access.
Borse said the platform was built using open source software wherever possible and designed to be cloud agnostic. Although the current implementation is built on Azure because that is the approved cloud environment, he said the team has tried to make the platform ready to move to another cloud provider when one is approved by Statnett.
The platform supports dynamic compute resources, isolated user environments, resource logging by user and project, encryption, and a range of research tools. Borse said the system provides default versions of Python and R, supports code versioning through tools such as GitHub and GitLab, and can also accommodate proprietary software when research projects require it.
Open Source, Cloud Agnosticism and Next Steps
Borse emphasized that open source and cloud agnosticism are important for the project because they support research, make it easier to change functionality and allow results developed on the platform to be distributed more freely.
He also noted that the platform must still support practical research needs. In one active project, researchers asked to use proprietary software and OpenAI APIs. Borse described this as part of the cooperation required to serve different research projects, even when the platform itself aims to use open source software as much as possible.
The session also addressed visualization. Borse said the team now has a reactive and dynamic visualization available for demonstration, but noted that the current visualization uses proprietary software. He said he hopes to return with an open source reactive and dynamic visualization in the future.
During the Q&A, Borse said development of the platform began about a year before the session. He said the team hopes to have a WAMPAC project up and running when the community meets again.
About LF Energy
LF Energy is an open source foundation within the Linux Foundation focused on advancing collaboration in digital energy infrastructure.
Learn more: https://lfenergy.org
Last updated: July 2, 2026
AI Disclosure
This post used artificial intelligence tools for research, structural assistance, or grammatical refinement. The final content was reviewed, edited, and validated by human contributors to LF Energy to ensure accuracy and alignment with our community standards. We remain committed to transparency in the use of generative technologies within the open source ecosystem.
