Power system automation realizes automatic control, automatic scheduling and automatic management of electric energy production, transmission and management. Power system is a complex large-scale system with wide geographical distribution, which consists of power plants, substations, transmission and distribution networks and users.

The fields of power system automation include automatic detection, adjustment and control of production process, automatic safety protection of systems and components, automatic transmission of network information, automatic scheduling of system production and automatic economic management of enterprises. The main goal of power system automation is to ensure the power quality (frequency and voltage) of power supply, ensure the safety and reliability of system operation, and improve economic benefits and management efficiency.

Power system automation mainly includes real-time monitoring of regional dispatching, substation automation and load control.

1. Real-time monitoring system for regional dispatching: It is usually composed of small computers or microcomputers, and its function is similar to that of centralized control monitoring system, but slightly simpler.

2. Substation automation: the development direction is unattended, and its telecontrol device adopts microcomputer programmable mode.

3. Load control: Power frequency or audio control mode is commonly used. Automation is supported not only by hardware, but also by software systems, such as production management and assistant decision-making system, bar code system of power plant operation inspection, electronic operation log system of power plant, office automation management (OA) system of power enterprise, etc. , so as to realize comprehensive automation.