Wide-Area Measurement-Driven Approaches for Power System Modeling and Analytics

This dissertation presents wide-area measurement-driven approaches for power system modeling and analytics. Accurate power system dynamic models are the very basis of power system analysis, control, and operation. Meanwhile, phasor measurement data provide first-hand knowledge of power system dynamic behaviors. The idea of building out innovative applications with synchrophasor data is promising. Taking advantage of the real-time wide-area measurements, one of phasor measurements’ novel applications is to develop a synchrophasor-based auto-regressive with exogenous inputs (ARX) model that can be updated online to estimate or predict system dynamic responses. Furthermore, since auto-regressive models are in a big family, the ARX model can be modified as other models for various purposes. A multi-input multi-output (MIMO) auto-regressive moving average with exogenous inputs (ARMAX) model is introduced to identify a low-order transfer function model of power systems for adaptive and coordinated damping control. With the increasing availability of wide-area measurements and the rapid development of system identification techniques, it is possible to identify an online measurement-based transfer function model that can be used to tune the oscillation damping controller. A demonstration on hardware testbed may illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive and coordinated damping controller. In fact, measurement-driven approaches for power system modeling and analytics are also attractive to the power industry since a huge number of monitoring devices are deployed in substations and power plants. However, most current systems for collecting and monitoring data are isolated, thereby obstructing the integration of the various data into a holistic model. To improve the capability of utilizing big data and leverage wide-area measurement-driven approaches in the power industry, this dissertation also describes a comprehensive solution through building out an enterprise-level data platform based on the PI system to support data-driven applications and analytics. One of the applications is to identify transmission-line parameters using PMU data. The identification can obtain more accurate parameters than the current parameters in PSS®E and EMS after verifying the calculation results in EMS state estimation. In addition, based on temperature information from online asset monitoring, the impact of temperature change can be observed by the variance of transmission-line resistance

Viiveiden vaikutus sähkömekaanisten heilahtelujen laajan alueen vaimennussäätöön

In this thesis the effects of delays on the wide-area damping control of electromechanical oscillations were studied. The research goals were two fold: to identify and define the delay sources in phasor measurement based (PMU) wide-area measurement systems for power systems, and to study the effects of delays on wide-area damping control using power system simulations as a research tool. The implementation the delays into a pre-existing power system simulation program as also a part of this work. The thesis shows and identifies the delays components and their properties in the wide-area measurement systems. It gives a survey on the reports of real delays observed in wide-area measurement systems worldwide. The simulation results show that delay has an impact on the damping control. Power system have a delay margin they are able to tolerate before turning unstable. Additionally, latency changes the properties of the electromechanical oscillations.Tässä diplomityössä tutkittiin viiveiden vaikutusta sähkömekaanisten heilahtelujen vaimennussäätöön. Työ oli karkeasti jaettavissa kahteen erilliseen osaan. Ensimmäinen osa oli voimajärjestelmien PMU-pohjaisten laajan alueen mittaus- ja ohjausjärjestelmien viivelähteiden löytäminen, tunnistaminen ja luokittelu. Toinen osa oli viiveiden vaikutusten tutkiminen laajan alueen heilahtelusäätöön käyttäen voimajärjestelmäsimulointia tutkimuksen työkaluna. Työn toteutus sisälsi viiveellistenmittauksien ja ohjauksien toteuttamisen valmiina olevaan simulaatio-ohjelmaan. Työ näyttää laajan alueen mittaus- ja ohjausjärjestelmien viivekomponentittien ominaisuudet ja vaikutuksen viiveketjuun sekä millaisia lukemia on raportoitu käytössä olevista järjestelmistä ympäri maailman. Työn viivesimulaatiot osoittavat, että viiveillä on merkitys sähkömekaanisten heilahtelujen vaimennussäätöön. Viiveellinen säätö muuttaa sähkömekaanisten heilahtelujen ominaisuuksia ja osoittaa, että voimajärjestelmillä on niille ominainen viiveen sietokyky

Real Time PMU Assisted Wide Area Oscillation Damping using Compact Reconfigurable Controllers

The modern power grid is increasingly being used under operating conditions of increasing stress, for which it was not designed. The increasing levels of variable sources such as wind and other other renewables also present stability problems. One of these stability issues is the phenomenon of low frequency, electromechanically induced, inter-area oscillations. Research has been carried out into the area of wide area oscillation damping to study and damp these inter-area modes. This thesis implements oscillation damping by modulating the excitation system input of a FACTS device with a supplementary control signal generated from Phasor Measurement Unit data. Phasor Measurement Units are becoming increasingly common and provide remote, real-time access to power system measurement data. This thesis takes an established Phasor based oscillation damping method and combines it with modern PMU measurements to produce a hardware prototype of a real-time oscillation damping control system using remote PMU signals sent over a communications network. The developed prototype is tested with various inputs to demonstrate the flexibility and advantages of using wide area measurements in power system control

A Procedure to design fault-tolerant wide-area damping controllers

The idea of a smart grid is based on the increased integration of information technologies throughout the power grid. Technologies, such as phasor measurement units, are being deployed to increase the number of wide-area measurements across the bulk power system providing increased awareness of the system operational state. However, from a critical infrastructure perspective, the advanced metering infrastructure introduces a concern: the loss of communication among devices and the power grid. This communication loss may interfere with the wide-area control system performance and adversely affect the power system dynamics. This paper proposes a method based on genetic algorithms for wide-area robust damping controller design considering multiple operation points and loss of communication links related to the input and to the output of the central controller. The method is applied to enhance the damping of the electromechanical oscillations in an IEEE benchmark system: the simplified 14-generator model of the Southeastern Australian power system. The performance of the designed controller is evaluated using modal analysis and non-linear simulations in the time domain. The obtained results demonstrate the effectiveness of the method to design a single centralized controller that provides satisfactory damping to the electromechanical oscillations over several operating points, even when there is a loss of a communication link, thus being robust with respect to is an important aspect of a critical power grid infrastructure62338323405FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO - FAPESP2015/02569-6; 2015/24245-8; 2015/18806-7; 2016/08645-

Wide-area monitoring and control of future smart grids

Application of wide-area monitoring and control for future smart grids with substantial wind penetration and advanced network control options through FACTS and HVDC (both point-to-point and multi-terminal) is the subject matter of this thesis. For wide-area monitoring, a novel technique is proposed to characterize the system dynamic response in near real-time in terms of not only damping and frequency but also mode-shape, the latter being critical for corrective control action. Real-time simulation in Opal-RT is carried out to illustrate the effectiveness and practical feasibility of the proposed approach. Potential problem with wide-area closed-loop continuous control using FACTS devices due to continuously time-varying latency is addressed through the proposed modification of the traditional phasor POD concept introduced by ABB. Adverse impact of limited bandwidth availability due to networked communication is established and a solution using an observer at the PMU location has been demonstrated. Impact of wind penetration on the system dynamic performance has been analyzed along with effectiveness of damping control through proper coordination of wind farms and HVDC links. For multi-terminal HVDC (MTDC) grids the critical issue of autonomous power sharing among the converter stations following a contingency (e.g. converter outage) is addressed. Use of a power-voltage droop in the DC link voltage control loops using remote voltage feedback is shown to yield proper distribution of power mismatch according to the converter ratings while use of local voltages turns out to be unsatisfactory. A novel scheme for adapting the droop coefficients to share the burden according to the available headroom of each converter station is also studied. The effectiveness of the proposed approaches is illustrated through detailed frequency domain analysis and extensive time-domain simulation results on different test systems

Utility Applications of Smart Online Energy Systems: A case for Investing in Online Power Electronics

The backbone of any power grid, the transmission and sub-transmission networks, should be flexible, robust, resilient and self-healing to cope with wide types of network adverse conditions and operations. Power electronic applications are making a major impact on the present and future state of power systems generation, transmission and distribution. These applications include FACTS (Flexible Alternating Current Transmission), HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) in transmission and Custom Power devices in distribution. FACTS devices are some of the advanced assets that network planners can use to make the transmission grid become more flexible and robust. Many established research ideas to advance operations of these devices have been published in the open literature over the last ten years. The most recent publications in this field are reviewed in this thesis. A critical analysis of literature and existing conditions reveals a range of potentials that are ideal for development in Qatar’s increasingly strained electricity network. As a result of demand surge in Qatar in recent years and the forecast to grow in the same rate, the need for improvement in Qatar Power Transmission System (QPTS) is great and significant. Conventional planning and operational solutions such as conductor up-rating, and fixed series capacitors (FSC) are considered. However there are growing challenges on getting new rights of ways for new overhead lines and even corridors for new cables. Advanced FACTS devices are considered for dynamic control of power flows and voltages, such as TCSC (Thyristor Controlled Series Capacitor) and GUPFC (Generalized, Unified Power Flow Controller). The research in this thesis examines the potential for QPTS to improve and develop, with emphasis on increased output through integrated online energy systems, online FACTS and HVDC controllers based on synchrophasor measurements. The devices are modelled in Siemens PTI’s PSS®E software, through steady-state mode case study to investigate power flow control and voltage support. Comparison between similar FACTS technologies, such as SVC and STATCOM, is also presented. The improvement in power flow imbalance between transmission lines with different ratings and lengths is studied. The FACTS devices are tested for voltage support to enhance the network voltage profile and hence increase security and reliability to important industrial customers. Optimization techniques of the FACTS devices allocation and rating are generally discussed considering the voltage improvement and optimal power flow control. The results achieved showing the network improvement with using the FACTS are presented in the case studies. In a separate case study, applying medium voltage custom power devices to convert DC battery storage and photovoltaic energy into AC energy using a power conversion system is discussed. The dynamic mode of the STATCOM is modelled in QPTS in the succeeding case study using the same software and compared with the capacitor banks. This is followed by another case of HVDC analysis modelled with and without STATCOM present. The thesis discussed the real time operation and control of power system physical parameters in QPTS using capacitors, FACTS and HVDC. The key contribution of this thesis is the application and resting of all sorts of FACTS and HVDC in QPTS. The system wide area, coordinated control of FACTS (Online Power Electronics-OPE) is a new concept. Another major contribution is being able to look at a system wide approach for a transmission smart grid application. The results of thesis are presented in international conferences in USA, Hong Kong, France, Portugal, and locally in the Arabian Gulf (Dubai, Oman and Qatar). The thesis’s papers are listed in the ‘References’ section and in Appendix-F

Wide-Area Time-Synchronized Closed-Loop Control of Power Systems And Decentralized Active Distribution Networks

The rapidly expanding power system grid infrastructure and the need to reduce the occurrence of major blackouts and prevention or hardening of systems against cyber-attacks, have led to increased interest in the improved resilience of the electrical grid. Distributed and decentralized control have been widely applied to computer science research. However, for power system applications, the real-time application of decentralized and distributed control algorithms introduce several challenges. In this dissertation, new algorithms and methods for decentralized control, protection and energy management of Wide Area Monitoring, Protection and Control (WAMPAC) and the Active Distribution Network (ADN) are developed to improve the resiliency of the power system. To evaluate the findings of this dissertation, a laboratory-scale integrated Wide WAMPAC and ADN control platform was designed and implemented. The developed platform consists of phasor measurement units (PMU), intelligent electronic devices (IED) and programmable logic controllers (PLC). On top of the designed hardware control platform, a multi-agent cyber-physical interoperability viii framework was developed for real-time verification of the developed decentralized and distributed algorithms using local wireless and Internet-based cloud communication. A novel real-time multiagent system interoperability testbed was developed to enable utility independent private microgrids standardized interoperability framework and define behavioral models for expandability and plug-and-play operation. The state-of-theart power system multiagent framework is improved by providing specific attributes and a deliberative behavior modeling capability. The proposed multi-agent framework is validated in a laboratory based testbed involving developed intelligent electronic device prototypes and actual microgrid setups. Experimental results are demonstrated for both decentralized and distributed control approaches. A new adaptive real-time protection and remedial action scheme (RAS) method using agent-based distributed communication was developed for autonomous hybrid AC/DC microgrids to increase resiliency and continuous operability after fault conditions. Unlike the conventional consecutive time delay-based overcurrent protection schemes, the developed technique defines a selectivity mechanism considering the RAS of the microgrid after fault instant based on feeder characteristics and the location of the IEDs. The experimental results showed a significant improvement in terms of resiliency of microgrids through protection using agent-based distributed communication

Synchrophasor Measurement Using Substation Intelligent Electronic Devices: Algorithms and Test Methodology

This dissertation studies the performance of synchrophasor measurement obtained using substation Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) and proposes new algorithms and test methodology to improve and verify their performance when used in power system applications. To improve the dynamic performance when exposed to sinusoidal waveform distortions, such as modulation, frequency drift, abrupt change in magnitude, etc, an adaptive approach for accurately estimating phasors while eliminating the effect of various transient disturbances on voltages and currents is proposed. The algorithm pre-analyzes the waveform spanning the window of observation to identify and localize the discontinuities which affect the accuracy of phasor computation. A quadratic polynomial signal model is used to improve the accuracy of phasor estimates during power oscillations. Extensive experimental results demonstrate the advantages. This algorithm can also be used as reference algorithm for testing the performance of the devices extracting synchronized phasor measurements. A novel approach for estimating the phasor parameters, namely frequency, magnitude and angle in real time based on a newly constructed recursive wavelet transform is developed. This algorithm is capable of estimating the phasor parameters in a quarter cycle of an input signal. It features fast response and achieves high accuracy over a wide range of frequency deviations. The signal sampling rate and data window size can be selected to meet desirable application requirements, such as fast response, high accuracy and low computational burden. In addition, an approach for eliminating a decaying DC component, which has significant impact on estimating phasors, is proposed using recursive wavelet transform. This dissertation develops test methodology and tools for evaluating the conformance to standard-define performance for synchrophasor measurements. An interleaving technique applied on output phasors can equivalently increase the reporting rate and can precisely depict the transient behavior of a synchrophasor unit under the step input. A reference phasor estimator is developed and implemented. Various types of Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) and PMU-enabled IEDs (Intelligent Electronic Devices) and time synchronization options have been tested against the standards using the proposed algorithm. Test results demonstrate the effectiveness and advantages