Wide-area monitoring and control using the real time digital simulator and a synchrophasor vector processor

Several major blackouts in the past have shown the need for advanced wide-area monitoring and control (WAMC) techniques. Advanced synchrophasor visualization and monitoring can be realized with time-referenced power system data that are collected by phasor measurement units (PMUs) using synchronized clocks. Presently, PMUs are being deployed around the world at a rapid rate for various power system applications. When a necessary number of PMUs are installed at optimal locations throughout the network, the complete state of the system can be observed. PMUs take real-time measurements to determine the state of the power system and can be used to enhance state estimation efficiency. With PMUs in place, there are many control and protection schemes that can be implemented successfully to take preventive and corrective actions. These remedial action schemes (RASs) are classified by the IEEE Power System Relaying Committee (PSRC) as system integrity protection schemes (SIPSs). This work involved the development of a real-time hardware test bed in order to analyze the transient stability of a simulated power system by using synchrophasors to visualize system stress across a transmission line with and without load-shedding schemes. The real time digital simulator (RTDS (R)) was used to model the power system in real time. PMUs, a satellite-synchronized clock, and a synchrophasor vector processor (SVP) were used to test the synchrophasor application. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.