Patent ID: 8037173

Claim:
A method for performing a sequence-of-events analysis in a power monitoring system that monitors an electrical utility system, the method comprising the acts of: monitoring in a subscriber intelligent electronic device (IED) a plurality of message streams, each of the plurality of message streams being received from a respective publisher IED over a peer-to-peer communications network, each of the plurality of message streams including a plurality of messages, each of the messages including information associated with electrical characteristics of the electrical utility system measured by a respective one of the publisher IEDs; measuring in the subscriber IED electrical characteristics of the electrical utility system; filtering the plurality of messages streams based topic or content; receiving one or more of the monitored plurality of message streams in the subscriber IED; analyzing in the subscriber IED a first of the received message streams received from a first of the publisher IEDs, the analyzing including performing statistical analysis of the information associated with the electrical characteristics measured by the first publisher IED and included in the messages of the first message stream; generating in the subscriber IED statistical data associated with the electrical characteristics measured by the first publisher IED; scanning in the subscriber IED at least the first message stream for an event of interest, the event of interest being (i) an appearance of new message stream detected or (ii) a disappearance of message stream detected, or both; in response to the generating, storing a first record in a buffer memory in the subscriber IED, the first record including the generated statistical data associated with the electrical characteristics measured by the first publisher IED; in response to the scanning detecting the event of interest, storing a second record in a historical log memory in the subscriber IED, the second record including data associated with the event of interest; and transmitting the first and the second records over the peer-to-peer communications network to a workstation remote from the publisher and the subscriber IEDs for use in the sequence-of-events analysis.