Abstract:Complexity of modern electrical power systems is steadily increasing. This is inspiring researchers and developers to propose new solutions capable to address a number of challenges, particularly those related to power system operation. A massive penetration of asynchronously connected renewable energy generation, the generation connected over inverters, is significantly changing the dynamics of modern power systems. From one hand, the power system response time is becoming shorter and at the same time the fault level is becoming smaller. This is significantly affecting requirements of control loops, as well as power system protection. Utilization of modern sensor and communication technology looks to be the critical technological enabler for addressing the mentioned challenges. In this context, development of Wide Area Monitoring, Protection and Control (WAMPAC) systems, based on Synchronized Measurement Technology represented by Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs), looks to be a part of the solution. This MPCE Special Issue is focused on those solutions, which will contribute to a more reliable, economical and secure operation of future smart grids. We believe that this Special Issue will motivate new research on the topics related to WAMPAC and by this contribute to the prosperity of modern societies, which as such definitely relies on the reliability and security of electrical power systems, which are considered to be one of the most important critical infrastructures created by mankind ever.

Abstract:Wide area monitoring (WAM) offers many opportunities to improve the performance of power system protection. This paper presents some of these opportunities and the motivation for their development. This methods include monitoring the suitability of relay characteristics, supervisory control of backup protection, more adaptive and intelligent system protection and the creation of novel system integrity protection scheme. The speed of response required for primary protection means that the role WAM in enhancing protection is limited to backup and system protection. The opportunities offered by WAM for enhancing protection are attractive because of the emerging challenges faced by the modern power system protection. The increasingly variable operating conditions of power systems are making it ever more difficult to select relay characteristics that will be a suitable compromise for all loading conditions and contingencies. The maloperation of relays has contributed to the inception and evolution of 70 % of blackouts, thus the supervision of the backup protection may prove a valuable tool for preventing or limiting the scale of blackouts. The increasing interconnection and complexity of modern power systems has made them more vulnerable to wide area disturbances and this has contributed to several recent blackouts. The proper management of these wide area disturbances is beyond the scope of most of the existing protection and new, adaptive system integrity protection schemes are needed to protect power system security.

Abstract:Power system restoration has attracted more attention and made great progress recently. Research progress of the power system restoration from 2006 to 2016 is reviewed in this paper, including black-start, network reconfiguration and load restoration. Some emerging methods and key techniques are also discussed in the context of the integration of variable renewable energy and development of the smart grid. There is a long way to go to achieve automatic self-healing in bulk power systems because of its extreme complexity. However, rapidly developing artificial intelligence technology will eventually enable the step-by-step dynamic decision-making based on the situation awareness of supervisory control and data acquisition systems (SCADA) and wide area measurement systems (WAMS) in the near future.

Abstract:Synchrophasor systems, providing low-latency, high-precision, and time-synchronized measurements to enhance power grid performances, are deployed globally. However, the synchrophasor system as a physical network, involves communication constraints and data quality issues, which will impact or even disable certain synchrophasor applications. This work investigates the data quality issue for synchrophasor applications. In Part I, the standards of synchrophasor systems and the classifications and data quality requirements of synchrophasor applications are reviewed. Also, the actual events of synchronization signal accuracy, synchrophasor data loss, and latency are counted and analyzed. The review and statistics are expected to provide an overall picture of data accuracy, loss, and latency issues for synchrophasor applications.

Abstract:This work investigates the data quality issue for synchrophasor applications, and pays particular attention to synchronization signal loss and synchrophasor data loss events. First, the historical synchronization signal loss events are analyzed and the potential reasons and solutions are discussed. Then, the scenario of a small amount of synchrophasor data loss is studied and a Lagrange interpolating polynomial method is used to adaptively estimate the incomplete and missing data. The performance of proposed method is demonstrated with simulation results. Specifically, the proposed method considers the trade-off between the estimation accuracy and the hardware cost, and could be efficiently employed in reality.

Abstract:Phasor measurement units (PMU) are playing an increasingly important role in power system dynamic security monitoring and control. However, the wide-area deployments of the renewable energy sources and the high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission bring a large number of inter-harmonics to the power grid, which may result in further power system security problems. The impacts of inter-harmonics on synchrophasor measurements are revealed. This paper derives the phasor expressions of the signal, which contains the fundamental component and the inter-harmonics. It is found that the inter-harmonics will lead to the subsynchronous oscillation of the phasor measurements. The frequency transmutation principle between the harmonic and the phasor oscillation is revealed. Then, the field PMU data recorded during a subsynchronous oscillation, which occurred in an area of China with a high concentration of wind farms and HVDC transmission lines, are studied. A geographical wiring diagram with the subsynchronous oscillation distribution depicts the severe consequences of the inter-harmonics. In addition, the correctness of the theoretical derivation and the possibility of the inter-harmonics monitoring are verified.

Abstract:State estimation is a critical functionality of energy management system (EMS) to provide power system states in real-time operations. However, problems such as failure to converge, prone to failure during contingencies, and biased estimates while system is under stressed condition occur so that state estimation results may not be reliable. The unreliable results further impact downstream network and market applications, such as contingency analysis, voltage stability analysis, transient stability analysis, system alarming, and unit commitment. Thus, operators may lose the awareness of system condition in EMS. This paper proposes a fully independent and one-of-a-kind system by integrating linear state estimator into situational awareness applications based on real-time synchrophasor data. With guaranteed and accurate state estimation solution and advanced real-time data analytic and monitoring functionalities, the system is capable of assisting operators to assess and diagnose current system conditions for proactive and necessary corrective actions. The architecture, building components, and implementation of the proposed system are explored in detail. Two case studies with simulated data from the subsystems of Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) are presented. The test results show the effectiveness and reliability of the system, and its value for real-time power system operations.

Abstract:With intermittence and stochastics of wind power largely introduced into power systems, power system stability analysis and control is in urgent need of reliable wind farm models. Considering the superiority of wide-area measurement systems, this paper develops a novel methodology for practical synchrophasor measurement-based modeling and parameter identification of wind farms. For the sake of preserving basic structural characteristics and control patterns simultaneously, a comprehensive wind farm model is constructed elaborately. To improve the efficiency of the identification procedure, dominant parameters are classified and selected by trajectory sensitivity analysis. Furthermore, an improved genetic algorithm is proposed to strengthen the capability of global optimization. The test results on the WECC benchmark system and the CEPRI 36-bus system demonstrate the effectiveness and reliability of the proposed modeling and identification methodology.

Abstract:This paper proposes a novel continuous wavelet transform (CWT) based approach to holistically estimate the dominant oscillation using measurement data from multiple channels. CWT has been demonstrated to be effective in estimating power system oscillation modes. Using singular value decomposition (SVD) technique, the original huge phasor measurement unit (PMU) datasets are compressed to finite useful measurement data which contain critical dominant oscillation information. Further, CWT is performed on the constructed measurement signals to form wavelet coefficient matrix (WCM) at the same dilation. Then, SVD is employed to decompose the WCMs to obtain the maximum singular value and its right eigenvector. A singular value vector with the entire dilation is constructed through the maximum singular values. The right eigenvector corresponding to the maximum singular value in the singular-value vector is adopted as the input of CWT to estimate the dominant modes. Finally, the proposed approach is evaluated using the simulation data from China Southern Power Grid (CSG) as well as the actual field-measurement data retrieved from the PMUs of CSG. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach performs well to holistically estimate the dominant oscillation modes in bulk power systems.

Abstract:This paper presents a measurement-based solution for low frequency oscillation (LFO) analysis in both real time monitoring and off-line case study. An online LFO property discrimination method is developed first, which alternately uses empirical mode decomposition (EMD)/Hilbert transform (HT) and square calculation to process the measurement data. The method magnifies the variation trend of oscillating variables to accurately discriminate the property of the oscillation. Subsequently, an oscillation source locating method for the forced oscillation (FO) and a strongly correlated generator identification method for the weak damping oscillation (WDO) are proposed. Finally, numerical study results on a test system of the isolated Changdu grid in Tibet validate the proposed methods.

Abstract:A high-performance predictor for critical unstable generators (CUGs) of power systems is presented in this paper. The predictor is driven by the MapReduce based parallelized neural networks. Specifically, a group of back propagation neural networks (BPNNs), fed by massive response trajectories data, are efficiently organized and concurrently trained in Hadoop to identify dynamic behavior of individual generator. Rather than simply classifying global stability of power systems, the presented approach is able to distinguish unstable generators accurately with a few cycles of synchronized trajectories after fault clearing, enabling more in-depth emergency awareness based on wide-area implementation. In addition, the technique is of rich scalability due to Hadoop framework, which can be deployed in the control centers as a high-performance computing infrastructure for real-time instability alert. Numerical examples are studied using NPCC 48-machines test system and a realistic power system of China.

Abstract:This paper investigates the feasibility of a selective secondary protective control strategy proposed to maximize the likelihood of recovery from misoperations of the existing (primary) protection in a power system. A scalable stochastic discrete-state model is established, taking into consideration of the processes of protection misoperations and their mitigations. Such misoperations have been a main culprit of cascading failures in modern power systems. The likelihood of recovery from protection misoperations is quantified by a set of security indices that formally incorporate the uncertain knowledge of the continuous-state of rotor angles/speed deviations of synchronous generators and that of the discrete-state of equipment faults and primary protection misoperations. The proposed secondary protection leverages on the ever more available time-synchronized samples of networked sensors for diagnosis and fault-tolerant control to cost effectively improving power system reliability without altering the existing protection system. The technology readiness for implementing the secondary protective control is examined through a three-area test system.

Abstract:A reasonable islanding strategy of a power system is the final resort for preventing a cascading failure and/or a large-area blackout from occurrence. In recent years, the applications of wide area measurement systems (WAMS) in emergency control of power systems are increasing. Therefore, a new WAMS-based controlled islanding scheme for interconnected power systems is proposed. First, four similarity indexes associated with the trajectories of generators are defined, and the weights of these four indexes are determined by using the well-developed entropy theory. Then, a coherency identification algorithm based on hierarchical clustering is presented to determine the coherent groups of generators. Secondly, an optimization model for determining controlled islanding schemes based on the coherent groups of generators is developed to seek the optimal cutset. Finally, a 16-generator 68-bus power system and a reduced WECC 29-unit 179-bus power system are employed to demonstrate the proposed WAMS-based controlled islanding schemes, and comparisons with existing slow coherency based controlled islanding strategies are also carried out.

Abstract:The controlled islanding for the power system is an effective method to deal with the emergent situations caused by large disturbances. The size of the solution space would increase exponentially as the scale of the power grid increases. The goal of our controlled islanding strategy is to divide the system into several islands quickly. Meanwhile, the generator coherency and the power-flow disruption have to be taken into consideration carefully. This paper proposed a two-stage fast islanding strategy for large power networks, which is on the basis of large power grid graph theories. In the first stage, the Stoer-Wagner algorithm is employed to obtain the grouping cluster of coherent generators in the dynamic undirected liaison graph. In the second stage, the improved Dinic max-flow method is proposed to search the optimal splitting boundary so as to acquire the minimum power flow impact. Our two-stage islanding strategy does not need to reduce the whole power network. Simulations on IEEE 118-bus and 162-bus power systems showed that the proposed strategy can acquire high quality solutions effectively and efficiently.

Abstract:Integration of primary and secondary devices are impelled by the development of smart grid. Based on the ideology of primary and secondary device integration, an all-in-one device and its concept, configuration and function are proposed. Then, an all-in-one device framework of distributed substation area protection is proposed. Point-to-point model and virtual local area network (VLAN) based network-to-network model are adopted in this framework. The dual redundancy on hardware and software level is realized by modularization and protection information mirroring storage/overwriting. Considering the fact that the sampling, logic judgment and information sharing processes of protection may fail in atrocious conditions, a distributed cooperative all-in-one device cluster based substation area joint defensive protection strategy is proposed. The adaptability of sectional component failure in secondary system is strengthened by reusing module function, setting value mirroring storage and dynamic load balancing computing ability to constitute strong intelligent outdoor secondary device integrated network. Finally, the simulation examples based on EPOCHS which consider various system failure conditions are presented to verify the validity and rationality of the proposed architecture and strategy.

Abstract:As the increasing number of Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) are deployed, wide area protection in power systems has been gaining interest. In particular, fault detection, fault classification and fault area estimation are essential to reduce the damage of faults, and even prevent catastrophic cascades of failures. In this paper, we present a scheme for fault area estimation using PMUs and traveling wave theory. The purpose of this paper is to formulate a scheme for fault area estimation by calculating the approximate fault location based on traveling wave theory. This research has targeted at reliable operation of wide transmission system through the estimation of fault area. To verify the suggested scheme, the various simulations are performed in practical Korean power transmission system. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme has a good performance with high accuracy for estimating fault area.

Abstract:Dynamic operation and control of power system is being increasingly done with the help of phasor measurement unit (PMU) based wide area monitoring and control system. The data communication requirements for the PMU based applications are well addressed by IEEE C37.118.2 standard. However, IEC 61850 is now becoming a leading standard for power utility automation needs. A new part of IEC 61850, IEC 61850-90-5, specifying the IEEE C37.118.1 based synchrophasors data transfer according to IEC 61850, will lead to IEC 61850-90-5 based PMU communication networks. A novel IEC 61850-90-5 compliant communication model of PMU is proposed in this paper. We also present a comparative performance analysis of the PMU communication networks supporting the new synchrophasor standard for data transfer, i.e. IEC 61850-90-5, and the existing standard, i.e. IEEE C37.118.2, for end to end (ETE) delay requirements for a modified IEEE 30 bus test system.

Abstract:Static security assessment (SSA) is an important procedure to ensure the static security of the power system. Researches recently show that cyber-attacks might be a critical hazard to the secure and economic operations of the power system. In this paper, the influences of false data injection attack (FDIA) on the power system SSA are studied. FDIA is a major kind of cyber-attacks that can inject malicious data into meters, cause false state estimation results, and evade being detected by bad data detection. It is firstly shown that the SSA results could be manipulated by launching a successful FDIA, which can lead to incorrect or unnecessary corrective actions. Then, two kinds of targeted scenarios are proposed, i.e., fake secure signal attack and fake insecure signal attack. The former attack will deceive the system operator to believe that the system operates in a secure condition when it is actually not. The latter attack will deceive the system operator to make corrective actions, such as generator rescheduling, load shedding, etc. when it is unnecessary and costly. The implementation of the proposed analysis is validated with the IEEE-39 benchmark system.

Abstract:The creation of a suitable wide area monitoring system (WAMS) is widely recognized as an essential aspect of delivering a power system that will be secure, efficient and sustainable for the foreseeable future. In Great Britain (GB), the deployment of the first WAMS to monitor the entire power system in real time was the responsibility of the visualization of real time system dynamics using enhanced monitoring (VISOR) project. The core scope of the VISOR project is to deploy this WAMS and demonstrate how WAMS applications can in the near term provide system operators and planners with clear, actionable information. This paper presents the wider scope of the VISOR project and the GB wide WAMS that has been deployed. Furthermore, the paper describes some of the WAMS applications that have been deployed and provides examples of the measurement device performance issues that have been encountered during the project.