Optimal phasor data concentrator installation for traffic reduction in smart grid wide-area monitoring systems

Conference Theme: the Power of Global CommunicationsSymposium on Selected Areas in CommunicationsAs one of the core components in wide-area monitoring systems (WAMS), phasor measurement units (PMUs) acquire highly accurate and time-synchronized phasor data at high frequency for smart grid monitoring, protection, and control. Despite the advantages of PMUs, they do generate much data and create a heavy burden on the communication network. One way of alleviating such burden is to install phasor data concentrators (PDC) across the power system to concentrate data generated by the PMUs. Although PDCs are expensive as well, this may still be a much cheaper and more practical option than building a high bandwidth network for WAMS. Therefore, it is very important to solve the optimal PDC installation problem so as to achieve a desired level of traffic reduction. This paper is the first to address this problem and we give solutions for the IEEE 14-bus, 30-bus, and 57-bus systems.published_or_final_versio

A survey on smart grid communication system

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Novel performance evaluation of information and communication technologies to enable wide area monitoring systems for enhanced transmission network operation

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London.The penetration of renewable energy sources has increased significantly in recent years due to the ongoing depletion of conventional resources and the transition to a low carbon energy system. Renewable energy sources such as wind energy are highly intermittent and unpredictable in nature, which makes the operation of the power grid more dynamic and therefore more complex. In order to operate the power system reliably under such conditions, Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) through the use of satellite technology can offer a state-of-the-art Wide Area Monitoring System (WAMS) for improving power system monitoring, control and protection. They can improve the operation by providing highly precise and synchronised measurements near to real-time with higher frequency and accuracy. In order to achieve such objectives, a high-speed and reliable communications infrastructure is required to transfer time-critical PMU data from remote locations to the control centre. The signals measured by PMUs are transmitted across Local and Wide Area Networks, where they may encounter excessive delays. Signal delays can have a disruptive effect and make applications at best inefficient and at worse ineffective. The main research contribution of this thesis is the performance evaluation of communication infrastructures for WAMS. The evaluation begins from inside substations and continues over wide areas from substations to control centre. Through laboratory-based investigations and simulations, the performance of communications infrastructure in a typical power system substation has been analysed. In addition, the performance evaluation of WAMS communications infrastructure has been presented. In the modelling and analysis, an existing WAMS as installed on the GB transmission system has been considered. The actual PMU packets as received at the Phasor Data Concentrator (PDC) were captured for latency analysis. A novel algorithmic procedure has been developed and implemented to automate the large-scale latency calculations. Furthermore, the internal delays of PMUs have been investigated, determined and analysed. Subsequently, the WAMS has been simulated and detailed comparisons have been performed between the simulated model results and WAMS performance data captured from the actual WAMS. The validated WAMS model has been used for analysing possible future developments as well as to test newly proposed mechanisms, protocols, etc. in order to improve the communications infrastructure performance

Software Defined Networks based Smart Grid Communication: A Comprehensive Survey

The current power grid is no longer a feasible solution due to ever-increasing user demand of electricity, old infrastructure, and reliability issues and thus require transformation to a better grid a.k.a., smart grid (SG). The key features that distinguish SG from the conventional electrical power grid are its capability to perform two-way communication, demand side management, and real time pricing. Despite all these advantages that SG will bring, there are certain issues which are specific to SG communication system. For instance, network management of current SG systems is complex, time consuming, and done manually. Moreover, SG communication (SGC) system is built on different vendor specific devices and protocols. Therefore, the current SG systems are not protocol independent, thus leading to interoperability issue. Software defined network (SDN) has been proposed to monitor and manage the communication networks globally. This article serves as a comprehensive survey on SDN-based SGC. In this article, we first discuss taxonomy of advantages of SDNbased SGC.We then discuss SDN-based SGC architectures, along with case studies. Our article provides an in-depth discussion on routing schemes for SDN-based SGC. We also provide detailed survey of security and privacy schemes applied to SDN-based SGC. We furthermore present challenges, open issues, and future research directions related to SDN-based SGC.Comment: Accepte

Cloud Computing Strategies for Enhancing Smart Grid Performance in Developing Countries

In developing countries, the awareness and development of Smart Grids are in the introductory stage and the full realisation needs more time and effort. Besides, the partially introduced Smart Grids are inefficient, unreliable, and environmentally unfriendly. As the global economy crucially depends on energy sustainability, there is a requirement to revamp the existing energy systems. Hence, this research work aims at cost-effective optimisation and communication strategies for enhancing Smart Grid performance on Cloud platforms

Economic and Security Challenges Faced by Smart Grid

openIn this dissertation I have mentioned the components of the smart grid and how it uses computer technology to improve the communication, automation, and connectivity of the various components of the power network. The main aim of protecting the grid from any hacks and fraud are cyber security since we are dealing with two ways communication flow of electricity and information technology. Advantages and disadvantages of smart grid implementation that affect the economy .Ultimately renewable resources are used for energy compensation and the real time monitoring is used for accurate and reliable consumption since the demand is increasing globally, and improves consumption management

Architecture and Experimental Validation of a Low-Latency Phasor Data Concentrator

The paper presents the design principles of a Phasor Data Concentrator (PDC) that implements both the absolute and relative time data pushing logics together with a third one that aims at minimizing the latency introduced by the PDC without increasing the data incompleteness, as suggested in the IEEE Guide C37.244-2013. The performance of the aforementioned logics are assessed and compared in terms of reliability, determinism and reduction of the overall latency in two real Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) installations adopting different telecom infrastructures. The first one is based on optical fiber links that transmit synchrophasor data measured by 15 PMUs installed in the sub-transmission network of the city of Lausanne, Switzerland. The second one adopts a 4G LTE wireless infrastructure to support the data streaming of 10 PMUs installed in a distribution network supplying the city of Huissen, in the Netherlands. The experimental results show that the proposed logic is characterized by the lowest latency, whereas the absolute time logic better mitigates the synchrophasor data latency variations

Application of Advanced Early Warning Systems with Adaptive Protection

This project developed and field-tested two methods of Adaptive Protection systems utilizing synchrophasor data. One method detects conditions of system stress that can lead to unintended relay operation, and initiates a supervisory signal to modify relay response in real time to avoid false trips. The second method detects the possibility of false trips of impedance relays as stable system swings “encroach” on the relays’ impedance zones, and produces an early warning so that relay engineers can re-evaluate relay settings. In addition, real-time synchrophasor data produced by this project was used to develop advanced visualization techniques for display of synchrophasor data to utility operators and engineers