Grid operating procedures search that turns the grid code and your operating instructions into numbered steps, with every exception beside them
Every answer as numbered steps, with the exceptions beside them, not pages later.
See one case, screen by screen ↓A control room runs on documents: the grid code, a few hundred operating instructions, the emergency load-shed plan, the system restoration plan, the safety rules and the protection philosophy. Together they run to thousands of pages, and they point at each other — “in the rotation order of Table 3”, “subject to OC6.5.2”. When two units trip at evening peak, the control engineer knows the low-frequency instruction exists. What they do not have is time to follow its references into three other documents.
The exceptions are where the risk sits. The step says shed in rotation order; the rule that a hospital feeder or a water pumping station is never selected is in the load-shed plan, the rule that blocks armed for automatic shedding are left alone is a section further on, and the outage permit on a 33 kV block is in the safety rules. And references go stale: when a load-shed plan is reissued, the instruction that cites the old table is not always changed with it.
Estimated split for one low-frequency event on the desk, in minutes, by hand from the binder and with the solution. The written-up log is the time after the event.
Seven specialist agents read the live state, find the clauses and follow every reference to its exceptions; the shift manager authorises or holds load shedding, the document owner decides what changes.
Lumina National Control Centre, Harrowfield, Monday 13 October 2026. Demand is 9,840 MW at evening peak and Meera Raman, 14 months on the desk, is the control engineer on shift C. Here is what happens next, screen by screen, in the working solution.
Ivelmouth CCGT unit 2 trips at 610 MW. Three seconds later the Brannock HVDC link trips on a converter fault and 390 MW of import from Northmere is gone. The alarms list shows the frequency below 49.5 Hz, lowest 49.42 Hz at 17:42:26, and primary response delivered, 310 MW from 11 units. The live strip holds at 49.46 Hz, falling at −0.004 Hz/s, with 490 MW armed for automatic stage 1 at 49.0 Hz.
“Ask what to do. The answer comes back as numbered actions, each linked to its clause, with the conditions and exceptions beside it.”
Meera types “Frequency below 49.5 Hz, what now?”. The situation reader reads the live values, read only. The clause finder matches OI-17 “Low System Frequency”, revision 9, §4.1–4.7. The branch builder follows 11 references into the Grid Code, ELS-2, the demand reduction schedules and the Safety Rules, and checks each condition against the live values.
Branch builder: “Rate of fall: not met · reserve above 300 MW: applies · 5-minute clock: watching”
Four actions from OI-17 rev 9, 11 clauses cited. Dispatch all contingency reserve, 520 MW within 10 minutes. Instruct contracted demand reduction, 180 MW. If the frequency is not above 49.5 Hz by 17:48:40, shed 5% in rotation — the shift manager orders it. Declare the emergency state and log every instruction by 18:12. Beside step 3, its branch is already open.
Step 3: “group A, 7 blocks, 490 MW — B-03, E-05, F-12, G-01, H-08, J-04, K-10. Hospital, water-pumping and life-support blocks are excluded.”
Confirm below 49.5 Hz on two independent measurements for 10 s — the branch shows 49.46 Hz for 64 s, 2 of 2. The rate-of-fall condition that would send her straight to step 3 is not met. Above 300 MW the shift manager must be told at dispatch, so that applies. And Kestrel Bay OCGT 3 is under permit PTW-2026-4466, so it is not counted as reserve.
Marrow Point pumped storage 300 MW, Kestrel Bay OCGT units 1 and 2, 220 MW — “Tell the shift manager as you dispatch.”
OI-17 §4.3 gives 10 minutes' notice for demand reduction. Grid Code OC6.4.1 says the notice in the contract schedule applies, and schedule DR-04 gives Halden Steel 15 minutes, one instruction in 24 hours, last used on 2 October. So the branch tells Meera the full 95 MW arrives by 17:59, not five minutes earlier.
“DR-04 Halden Steel — 15 minutes' notice, not 10”
Meera opens ELS-2 §3.4 from the branch. The clause opens beside the answer, highlighted, on page 9 of 64: the blocks that supply protected sites are never selected in any rotation. ELS-2 §3.5 puts the life-support blocks A-09 and C-14, 1,284 customers, last. §3.6 leaves out the 14 blocks armed for stage 1, and Safety Rule 9.2 takes B-11 Brannock 33 kV out because it is under permit.
ELS-2 §3.4: “D-07 Ardley Fen General Hospital (two 11 kV feeders); W-02 Calder Reach water treatment works and high-lift pumping station; T-01 Harrowfield control centre supply.”
OI-17 §4.5.2 still says to select blocks in the rotation order of ELS-1 Table 3. ELS-1 was superseded on 1 August 2026, and in ELS-1 the Ardley Fen hospital block D-07 sat in rotation group B. The answer uses ELS-2, and the revision checker raises gap G-1, High, with both clauses side by side and a drafted change for the instruction's owner, Leila Marsh.
“An operator reading OI-17 literally would open the old table.”
Meera works the event checklist: reserve dispatched from 17:43:40, demand reduction from 17:44:15, each with its repeat-back. Group A is prepared at 17:45:02. Then she asks Graham Tully to decide. The decision window shows the frequency at 49.77 Hz and rising, group A and every block left out, and why. He chooses to hold.
“Hold — prepared, not executed” · or “Authorise the shed”. Only the shift manager decides.
The frequency is back above 49.8 Hz at 17:48:20, six minutes after the trip. Northmere is told at 17:51:20 and the regulator's duty officer at 17:58:05, both well before 18:12. Every instruction carries its time and repeat-back, and step 3 shows “Held by Graham Tully at 17:47:10 — prepared, not executed”. Meera closes the checklist into the shift log.
Shift log writer: records only what a person ticked, said or decided — entries cannot be edited after the shift closes.
The event goes on record: lost 1,000 MW, lowest 49.42 Hz, demand disconnected none, back to normal in 6 minutes, the clauses used, and the lesson — the revision checker caught OI-17 §4.5.2 pointing at ELS-1. Three rows down is 19 July 2024, when the hospital block D-07 was read out from ELS-1 group B and stopped by the field engineer. That event is why ELS-2 §3.4 exists.
“Revision checker caught OI-17 §4.5.2 pointing at ELS-1 (gap G-1).”
The same event, seen by the five people who carry it — what their shift looked like, and what it looks like now.
Seven specialist agents read the live state, find the clauses and follow every reference to its exceptions; the shift manager authorises or holds load shedding, the document owner decides what changes.
Reads the question and the live system state — frequency, rate of change, demand, reserve, armed stages and outage permits — so every condition is checked against real values.
Finds the operating instruction and grid code clauses that answer the question; where two documents disagree, it returns both and says which governs.
Follows every cross-reference from the matched clauses, to any depth, and types each one as a step, condition, exception, reference or superseded; checks each condition against the live values.
Writes one numbered action per step in the procedure's order, with its clause chips, the quantities and the person who decides.
Checks every reference in an answer, and every night every reference in the library, against the revision register; finds superseded references, conflicts, stale settings and retired equipment.
Writes the checklist — ticks, times, repeat-backs and the shift manager's decisions — into the shift log, each line linked to its clause.
Builds drills from real events and scores a trainee's actions against the procedure, explaining each mistake with the exception or condition it broke.
Authorises or holds every shed. The agents propose; a named person decides.
Ask about any instruction, clause or event — or say what to do with an answer. Every answer points to its clauses.
Why is block D-07 never on the shed list?
D-07 feeds Ardley Fen General Hospital on two 11 kV feeders. ELS-2 §3.4 lists it as a protected site that is never selected in any rotation. It was in rotation group B in ELS-1, which was superseded on 1 Aug 2026; after the July 2024 event, when it was read out from the old table, it was moved.
What changed in the load-shed plan since OI-17 was written?
ELS-2 replaced ELS-1 on 1 Aug 2026, seven months after OI-17 revision 9. Three things changed: D-07 became a protected site, life-support blocks A-09 and C-14 moved to last in rotation, and armed stage-1 blocks may no longer be picked by hand. OI-17 §4.5.2 still cites ELS-1 — that is gap G-1, now with Leila Marsh.
Start the checklist for this event
The checklist is open with the four actions from your answer, the reserve units, the three demand reduction customers and rotation group A filled in. Each line records the time and the repeat-back; step 3 needs Graham Tully's decision.
Turn tonight's event into a drill for Sami
Done. Drill 8 “Double trip, Brannock link out” uses tonight's figures with Kestrel Bay OCGT 2 unavailable, so Sami has 410 MW of reserve, not 520. It marks the D-07 trap from ELS-1. It is on the Drill screen.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
How answers are written, where live values come from, who decides and where gaps go are settings, chosen by the control room.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Every step carries its clause | On | On · Off — locked on; a step without a clause, revision and page is removed before it is shown |
| Quote safety-critical text | On | On · Off — locked on; quantities, settings and exceptions are quoted from the clause |
| Revisions that may answer | Current only | Current only · Current and approved drafts — superseded revisions are shown struck through, never used |
| Open the branch | Most exceptions | Most exceptions · Step 1 — which step's branch opens first after an answer |
| Control system feed | Every 4 seconds | Every 4 seconds · Every 10 seconds — read only |
| Mark a value stale after | 10 seconds | 10 seconds · 30 seconds — conditions on a stale value show “check on the desk” |
| Manual demand disconnection | Shift manager | Shift manager · Shift manager and duty director — authorise or hold, under OI-17 §4.5.1 |
| Procedure gaps | 10 working days | 5 · 10 · 20 working days — sent to the document owner; Grid Code conflicts to Grid Code compliance |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample network data · “target” = the design goal, measured in the pilot · “estimated” = our estimate: on the demo network stage 1 is 5% of a 9,840 MW peak, about 105,000 of 2.1 million customers, at a 50-minute average restoration — replaced by the customer's own figures; the minutes split is estimated too · “typical” = published figures (Ofgem, 9 August 2019 power cut: more than one million customers disconnected, £10.5M paid; ESO technical report: frequency fell to 48.8 Hz; FERC–NERC report on the February 2021 cold weather outages: 23,418 MW of firm load shed; ERCOT board presentation, 24 February 2021: below 59.4 Hz for 4 min 23 s). Regulatory context: NERC EOP-011, COM-002, PER-005, PRC-006; EU Regulation 2017/2196 (demand disconnection from 49.0 Hz). Lumina Utilities, its control centre, plant, places, customers and records, and the people named on this page are fictional — characters and sample data in the working solution.
Search for system operators that answers from your grid code, operating instructions, load-shed plan and safety rules. A control engineer asks in plain words and gets the approved actions as numbered steps, each linked to its clause and revision, with the conditions and exceptions beside each step.
Seven agents share the work. One reads the live values, read only; one finds the governing instruction in its current revision; one follows every cross-reference to its conditions and exceptions and checks them against the live values; one writes the numbered steps, quoting quantities from the clause; one checks every reference for superseded revisions. In the sample event the answer came back in 9.1 seconds with 11 clauses cited.
Every load-shedding answer carries the exceptions from the load-shed plan beside the step: protected sites such as the hospital and the water treatment and pumping blocks are never selected, life-support blocks go last, blocks armed for automatic shedding are left out and apparatus under an outage permit is not counted. The branch builder never drops an exception.
The answer uses the plan in force and shows the old reference struck through. The revision checker raises a procedure gap with both clauses side by side and a drafted change, and sends it to the document owner. It never edits a procedure; the owner decides.
Yes. The agents read live values only and never operate plant or issue an instruction. The shift manager authorises or holds every manual demand disconnection, every instruction is given in three-part form, and the checklist records who decided and when.
Yes. The drill coach builds drills from real events — in the sample, tonight's double trip with one unit unavailable — and scores a trainee's actions against the procedure, explaining each wrong action with its clause. It runs on training only, never on a live answer.
The answer becomes the event checklist: each instruction with its time, who it went to and its repeat-back. The shift log writer records only what a person ticked, said or decided, and entries cannot be edited after the shift closes. Rules such as NERC COM-002 call for three-part communication in an emergency.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents — your grid code, operating instructions, emergency plans, safety rules and contract schedules — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. We will walk you through it on your own procedures and a past event first.
We'll run Grid Operating Procedures Search on your own grid code, operating instructions and a past event.