Roy Billinton

Biography

Roy Billinton obtained B.Sc and M.Sc degrees from the University of Manitoba and Ph.D and D.Sc degrees from the University of Saskatchewan. He joined the University of Saskatchewan as an Assistant Professor in 1964, after working in the System Planning and Production Divisions of Manitoba Hydro. Dr. Billinton’s area of research is power system reliability, economics and performance and he has developed a wide range of techniques to evaluate the reliability of engineering systems, from simple configurations to complex systems such as large electric power generation, transmission and distribution systems. In this regard, he has made a significant contribution to the development and application of quantitative techniques for past performance and predictive assessment of power system reliability. 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. His first book, published in 1970, is considered to be the first book in English on the subject of power system reliability. He is the author or co-author of over 975 technical papers related to his research with over 535 publications in international refereed journals. He has made presentations, or given courses, in over thirty countries, and has given over one hundred short courses on reliability evaluation to electric power utilities in Canada or abroad. During his tenure at the University of Saskatchewan over one hundred and thirty five graduate students have received their degrees under his supervision. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) in 1980 and received the University of Saskatchewan Distinguished Researcher Award in October 1993. A large portion of his research was conducted while holding important academic responsibilities at the University of Saskatchewan, including serving as the Head of the Department of Electrical Engineering (8 years), Assistant Dean (2 years), Associate Dean (15 years) responsible for Graduate Studies, Research and Extension, and Acting Dean (2 years) of the College of Engineering. Dr. Billinton officially retired and became a Professor Emeritus effective July l, 2003. Since that time he has been active in conducting research and supervising graduate students either individually or jointly with Professor Rajesh Karki. He was appointed as a Distinguished Professor Emeritus effective July 2013. When Professor Billinton joined the University of Saskatchewan as an Assistant Professor in 1964, one of his assigned tasks was to work with Professor R.J. Fleming to develop a Power System Research Group in the College. Professor Billinton’s power industry background and earlier reliability research gave him a unique advantage in accomplishing this task and the University of Saskatchewan Power System Research Group was formed and internationally recognized over the next decade. Professor Billinton’s research work is international in scope and he has been very active in both the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and the Canadian Electricity Association (CEA). He joined the CEA in 1962 while working for Manitoba Hydro and has been continually involved since that time. He served as Chair of the Power System Reliability Subsection, the System Planning and Operating Section and the Engineering and Operating Division. He is a founding member of the CEA Consultative Committee on Outage Statistics and served as its Chair for over twenty-five years. Under his guidance, the CEA has developed and operates, what is arguably the most comprehensive power system outage data collection system in the world. The Equipment Reliability Information System (ERIS) collects and produces component outage data for generation and transmission systems. The Electric Power System Performance Assessment (EPSRA) protocols cover bulk system performance assessment, significant power interruptions and service continuity data. The ERIS and EPSRA methodologies developed for collecting data using a common set of definitions are now accepted as Canadian electric power industry standards. Both ERIS and EPSRA are national systems that have the strong support of Canada’s electric power utilities. The models and techniques developed in Professor Billinton’s research program have provided considerable impetus to the development of suitable protocols for component and system outage data collection. His contributions to the CEA and Canada were recognized by giving him the CEA Centennial Award for distinguished service to the Canadian electric power industry in 1991. Dr. Billinton has had considerable connection over a long period of time with the IEEE as attested by his Life Fellow status. He became a Fellow of the IEEE in 1978 based on his research achievements and IEEE activities up to that time. He joined the Application of Probability Methods (APM) Subcommittee in 1964 and subsequently served a three year term as its Chairman. He has served on many Task Forces (TF) and Working Groups (WG) over the past fifty years. These include the Performance Records for Optimizing System Design (PROSD) WG, the T & D Component Outage Data TF, the Deterministic Transmission Criteria TF, the Bulk Power Indices TF (Chair) and numerous others. His contributions to the APM Subcommittee and its successor the RRPA Subcommittee can be seen in the “History of the Application of Probability Methods (APM) and Reliability, Risk and Probability Applications (RRPA) Subcommittees” on the RRPA SC website. In addition to his fellowship in the IEEE and the RSC, Professor Billinton is a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada (1981) and the Canadian Academy of Engineering (1999).

Research Interest

Dr. Billinton’s area of research is power system reliability, economics and performance and he has developed a wide range of techniques to evaluate the reliability of engineering systems, from simple configurations to complex systems such as large electric power generation, transmission and distribution systems. In this regard, he has made a significant contribution to the development and application of quantitative techniques for past performance and predictive assessment of power system reliability.