Roy Billinton

Roy Billinton (born September 14, 1935) is a Canadian scholar and a Distinguished Emeritus Professor at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

He joined the University of Saskatchewan as an assistant professor in 1964, after working in the System Planning and Production Divisions of Manitoba Hydro.

His first book, published in 1970, is considered to be the first book in English on the subject of power system reliability.

These books have been used worldwide as research and study textbooks.

He is the author or co-author of over 950 technical papers related to his research with over 525 publications in international refereed journals.

Over 400 papers were published in Conference Proceedings in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, France and other countries.

Billinton's other areas of significant contribution include the probabilistic evaluation of transient stability, overall system reliability incorporating a hierarchical system framework, common cause and dependent component outages, adverse weather outage models and the development of the Roy Billinton Test System (RBTS).

He became a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1980, and was selected a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering in 1999.

In addition, Billinton served the College of Engineering as executive director of the University of Saskatchewan 'Canadian International Development Authority (CIDA)'/Inner Mongolia Engineering College Project and as the University of Saskatchewan member on the CIDA/Nepal Engineering College Consortium.

He served as chair of the Consortium for several years.

His teaching skills have been recognized by receiving the IEEE Outstanding Power Engineer Educator Award in 1992 and the IEEE Canada Outstanding Engineer Educator Award in 2001.

After holding a number of academic responsibilities at the University of Saskatchewan, including serving as an assistant professor, associate professor, professor, head of the Department of Electrical Engineering, assistant dean, associate dean, and acting dean.

degrees from the University of Saskatchewan, and received the University of Saskatchewan Distinguished Researcher Award in October 1993.

Billinton was a co-founder of the Probabilistic Methods Applied to Power Systems International Society in 1997 and has been on the board of the society as a director and the chair since its inception.

Billinton obtained B.Sc.

and M.Sc.

degrees from the University of Manitoba, Ph.D. and D.Sc.

His contributions to international activities at the University of Saskatchewan were recognized by presenting him with the J.W. George Ivany Internationalization Award in 2000.

Billinton supervised over one hundred and thirty graduate students.

Over forty of these students obtained Ph.D degrees.

Billinton retired and became a professor emeritus effective July l, 2003.

Billinton's area of research is electric power system reliability, economics and performance.

He co-founded the University of Saskatchewan Power System Research Group and developed a wide range of techniques to evaluate the reliability of engineering systems, from simple configurations to complex systems such as large electricity generation, electric power transmission and electric power distribution systems.

His research has applied and studied the well-being approach in the system operating domain, in generating capacity planning and in composite system reliability evaluation.

These studies include the effects of variable wind power and are considered to be significant contributions to power system reliability research.

Billinton has made a significant contribution to the development and application of quantitative techniques for past performance and predictive assessment of power system reliability.

Billinton's work involves both repair and replacement activities.

An important initial contribution by Billinton to the power engineering literature was the utilization of Markov models to incorporate component repair and spare component provisions.

These models were applied to evaluate the benefits of spare transformers and mercury arc valves in high voltage direct current transmission converter stations, such as those being considered by Manitoba Hydro for their Nelson River development.

This was an important practical application of Markov modeling.

Markov models are now routinely used in many power system reliability applications.

One important area of research that arose from earlier studies at Manitoba Hydro was the recognition and need to quantitatively evaluate the operating risk associated with adding large generating units to a relatively small electric power utility.

This concern resulted in a major area of study on spinning or operating capacity reliability assessment that incorporated load forecast uncertainty, rapid start and hot reserve considerations, and the incorporation of interruptible loads.

These studies were completed many years ago but are now being reconsidered and extended to incorporate renewable energy sources.

The increasing penetration of wind power in modern electric power systems introduces new dimensions in risk evaluation in both the planning and operating domains.

In 2007, Billinton was elected a Foreign Associate of the United States National Academy of Engineering for "contributions to teaching, research and application of reliability engineering in electric power generation, transmission, and distribution systems."

Billinton is known in academia and the power industry for his work on power system reliability evaluation.

He is the author or co-author of eight books dealing with power system reliability.

Two of these books, now in their second editions, have been republished in Chinese and one in Russian.

In 2008, Billinton won the IEEE Canada Electric Power Medal for his research and application of reliability concepts in electric power system.