The electric power grid is operated with exceptionally high levels of reliability, yet recent large-scale outages have highlighted areas for improvement in operation, control, and planning of power systems.  Synchrophasor technology may be able to address these concerns, and Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) are actively being deployed across the Western Interconnection and North America.  Initiatives such as the Western Interconnection Synchrophasor Program (WISP) are making significant investments PMUs with the expectation that wide-area, synchronized, high-resolution measurements will improve operator situational awareness, enable advanced control strategies, and aid in planning the grid. This research is multifaceted in that it focuses on improved operator awareness and alarming as well as innovative remedial controls utilizing synchrophasors.  It integrates existing tools, controls, and infrastructure with new technology to propose applications and schemes that can be implemented for any utility.  This work presents solutions to problems relevant to the industry today, emphasizing utility design and implementation.  The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) transmission systems are used as the testing environment, and the work performed here is being explored for implementation at BPA.  However, this work is general in nature such that it can be implemented in myriad networks and control centers. A Phase Angle Alarming methodology is proposed for improving operator situational awareness.  The methodology is used for setting phase angle limits for a two-tiered angle alarming application.  PMUs are clustered using an adapted disturbance-based probabilistic rms-coherency analysis.  While the lower tier angle limits are determined using static security assessment between the PMU clusters, the higher tier limits are based on pre-contingency operating conditions that signify poorly damped post-contingency oscillation ringdown.  Data mining tools, specifically decision trees, are employed to determine critical indicators and their respective thresholds.  An application is presented as a prototype; however, the methodology may be implemented in online tools as well as offline studies. System response to disturbances is not only dependent on pre-contingency conditions but also highly dependent on post-contingency controls.  Pre-defined controls such as Special Protection Schemes (SPSs) or Remedial Action Schemes (RAS) have a substantial impact on the stability of the system.  However, existing RAS controls are generally event-driven, meaning they respond to predetermined events on the system.  This research expands an existing event-driven voltage stability RAS to a response-based scheme using synchrophasor measurements.  A rate-of-change algorithm is used to detect substantial events that may put the WECC system at risk of instability.  Pickup of this algorithm triggers a RAS that provides high-speed wide-area reactive support in the BPA area.  The controls have proved effective for varying system conditions and topologies, and maintain stability for low probability, high consequence contingencies generally dismissed in today's deterministic planning studies. With investments being made in synchrophasor technology, the path of innovation has been laid; it's a matter of where it goes.  The goal of this research is to present simple, yet highly effective solutions to problems.  Doing so, the momentum behind synchrophasors can continue to build upon itself as it matures industry-wide. / Ph. D.

Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) are widely acknowledged as one of the most significant developments in the field of real-time monitoring of power system. By aligning time stamps of voltage and current phasor measurements, which are consistent with Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), a coherent picture of the power system state can be achieved through either direct measurements or simple linear calculations. With the growing number of PMUs installed or planned to be installed in the near future, both utilities and research institutions are looking for novel applications of synchrophasor measurements from these widely installed PMUs. In this dissertation, the author proposes two new PMUs measurements applications: three-phase instrument transformer calibration, and three-phase line parameter calculation with instrument transformers. First application is to calibrate instrument transformers. Instrument transformers are the main sensors used in power systems. They provide isolation between high voltage level of primary side and metering level of the secondary side. All the monitoring and measuring systems obtain input signals from the secondary side of instrument transformers. That means when instrument transformers are not accurate, all the measurements used in power system are inaccurate. The most important job of this dissertation is to explore a method to automatically calibrate all the instrument transformers in the power system based on real-time synchrophasor measurements. The regular instrument transformer calibration method requires the instrument transformer to be out of service (offline) and calibrated by technicians manually. However, the error of instrument transformer changes when environment changes, and connected burden. Therefore, utilities are supposed to periodically calibrate instrument transformers at least once a year. The high labor and economic costs make traditional instrument transformer calibration method become one of the urgent problems in power industry. In this dissertation we introduce a novel, low cost and easy method to calibrate three-phase instrument transformers. This method only requires one three-phase voltage transformer at one bus calibrated in advance. All other instrument transformers can be calibrated by this method as often as twice a day, based on the synchrophasor measurements under different load scenarios. Second application is to calculate line parameters during calibrating instrument transformers. The line parameters, line impedance and line shunt admittance, as needed by utilities are generated by the computer method. The computer method is based on parameters, such as the diameter, length, material characteristics, the distance among transmission line, the distance to ground and so on. The formulas to calculate line parameters have been improved and re-modeled from time to time in order to increase the accuracy. However, in this case, the line parameters are still inaccurate due to various reasons. The line parameters errors do affect the instrument transformers calibration results (with 5% to 10% error). To solve this problem, we present a new method to calculate line parameters and instrument transformers in the same processing step. This method to calibrate line parameter and instrument transformers at the same time only needs one pre-calibrated voltage transformer and one pre-calibrated current transformer in power system. With the pre-calibrated instrument transformers, the line parameter as well as the ratio correction factors of all the other instrument transformers can be solved automatically. Simulation results showed the errors between calculated line parameters and the real line parameter, the errors between calibrated ratio correction factors and the real ratio correction factors are of the order of 10e-10 per unit. Therefore, high accuracy line parameters as well as perfectly calibrated instrument transformers can be obtained by this new method. This method can run automatically every day. High accuracy and dynamic line parameters will significantly improve power system models. It will also increase the reliability and speed of the relay system, enhance the accuracy of power system analysis, and benefit all other researches using line parameters. New methods of calculating line parameter and the instrument transformer calibrations will influence the whole power industry significantly. / Ph. D.

The power grid is interconnected in many ways; so that when disturbances occur in a small region, their effects can be seen across large areas causing major blackouts. In order to isolate the fault, measurements taken at different times throughout the blackout need to be collected and analyzed. With each measurement device having its own time source, time alignment can be a quite tedious and lengthy process. The need for a new time synchronized measurement device has arrived. The Phasor Measurement Units (PMU) is not only GPS time synchronized, but it also takes measurements as voltage and current phasors. PMUs are becoming an integral part in many power system applications from load flow analysis and state estimation to analyzing blackout causes. Phasor Data Concentrators (PDC) collect and process PMU data. As such, it is important that PMU and PDC communication is seamless. PDCs are set up at multiple utilities and power authorities and also need to be able to communicate and send data to one another seamlessly to encompass analysis of large measurement systems. If these devices are not working similarly when processing and sending/receiving data, unnecessary problems may arise. Therefore it is important that there is an expectation as to how they should work. However, what is expected from these devices is not entirely clear. For this reason, standards such as IEEE C37.118.2-2011 [5] have been proposed to help make operation as uniform as possible. Unfortunately, the standards for PDCs are lacking and tend to only set up communication protocols. To help normalize PDCs, these standards need to be expanded to include all PDC operations and give little room for discrepancy as to what a PDC should do in any given situation. Tests have been performed on PDCs not only to see how they match up to current standards but on how they act outside of the standards. / Master of Science

This report presents a simulation of a real-time phasor measurement unit (PMU) using Matlab, designed to adhere to the IEEE C.37.118 standard. A PMU utilizes measured voltage or current on the power grid and calculates the phasor, frequency and rate of change of frequency (ROCOF). They are crucial in smart grid applications, used to minimize losses and prevent damage to hardware and blackouts. The project was issued by Hitachi Energy with the purpose of utilizing the model for simulating and analyzing real-time data, assessing the PMU's response to different scenarios on the power grid. The results are intended to verify their current system's implementation. The Matlab implementation correctly calculated the phasor, phase-shift, frequency and ROCOF within the requirements of the standard. The associated Total Vector Error (TVE) also complied with the standard. However, the real-time aspect of the PMU did not comply with the standard for several reasons. Specifically the Hilbert transform and FIR filter introduced calculation and filtering delays in addition to internet transmission delays associated with the UDP-interface in Matlab. However, Matlab support confirmed that there are known performance issues with the UDP-interface. It was concluded that the model provided a solid groundwork for its intended use, though the model has yet to be tested with real data from the grid, and would benefit from additional work on optimization.

Today's electric power system is operated under increasingly stressed conditions. As electrical demand increases, the existing grid is operated closer to its stable operating limits while maintaining high reliability of electric power delivery to its customers. Protective schemes are designed to account for pressures towards unstable operation, but there is always a tradeoff between security and dependability of this protection. Adaptive relaying schemes that can change or modify their operation based on prevailing system conditions are an example of a protective scheme increasing reliability of the power system. The purpose of this thesis is to validate and analyze implementation of the Security-Dependability Adaptive Voting Scheme. It is demonstrated that this scheme can be implemented with a select few Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) reporting positive sequence currents to a Phasor Data Concentrator (PDC). At the PDC, the state of the power system is defined as Stressed or Safe and a set of relays either vote or perform normal operation, respectively. The Adaptive Voting Scheme was implemented using two configurations: hardware- and software-based PDC solutions. Each was shown to be functional, effective, and practical for implementation. Practicality was based on the latency of Wide Area Measurement (WAM) devices and the added latency of relay voting operation during Stressed conditions. Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs), Phasor Data Concentrators (PDCs), and relay operation delays were quantified to determine the benefits and limitations of WAMS protection and implementation of the voting scheme. It is proposed that the delays injected into the existing protection schemes would have minimal effect on the voting scheme but must be accounted for when implementing power system controls due to the real-time requirements of the data. / Master of Science

The motivation for this research is to leverage the increasing deployment of the phasor measurement unit (PMU) technology by electric utilities in order to improve situational awareness in power systems. PMUs provide unprecedentedly fast and synchronized voltage and current measurements across the system. Analyzing the big data provided by PMUs may prove helpful in reducing the risk of blackouts, such as the Northeast blackout in August 2003, which have resulted in huge costs in past decades. In order to provide deeper insight into early warning signs (EWS) of catastrophic events in power systems, this dissertation studies changes in statistical properties of high-resolution measurements as a power system approaches a critical transition. The EWS under study are increases in variance and autocorrelation of state variables, which are generic signs of a phenomenon known as critical slowing down (CSD). Critical slowing down is the result of slower recovery of a dynamical system from perturbations when the system approaches a critical transition. CSD has been observed in many stochastic nonlinear dynamical systems such as ecosystem, human body and power system. Although CSD signs can be useful as indicators of proximity to critical transitions, their characteristics vary for different systems and different variables within a system. The dissertation provides evidence for the occurrence of CSD in power systems using a comprehensive analytical and numerical study of this phenomenon in several power system test cases. Together, the results show that it is possible extract information regarding not only the proximity of a power system to critical transitions but also the location of the stress in the system from autocorrelation and variance of measurements. Also, a semi-analytical method for fast computation of expected variance and autocorrelation of state variables in large power systems is presented, which allows one to quickly identify locations and variables that are reliable indicators of proximity to instability.

abstract: The electric power system is monitored via an extensive network of sensors in tandem with data processing algorithms, i.e., an intelligent cyber layer, that enables continual observation and control of the physical system to ensure reliable operations. This data collection and processing system is vulnerable to cyber-attacks that impact the system operation status and lead to serious physical consequences, including systematic problems and failures. This dissertation studies the physical consequences of unobservable false data injection (FDI) attacks wherein the attacker maliciously changes supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) or phasor measurement unit (PMU) measurements, on the electric power system. In this context, the dissertation is divided into three parts, in which the first two parts focus on FDI attacks on SCADA and the last part focuses on FDI attacks on PMUs. The first part studies the physical consequences of FDI attacks on SCADA measurements designed with limited system information. The attacker is assumed to have perfect knowledge inside a sub-network of the entire system. Two classes of attacks with different assumptions on the attacker's knowledge outside of the sub-network are introduced. In particular, for the second class of attacks, the attacker is assumed to have no information outside of the attack sub-network, but can perform multiple linear regression to learn the relationship between the external network and the attack sub-network with historical data. To determine the worst possible consequences of both classes of attacks, a bi-level optimization problem wherein the first level models the attacker's goal and the second level models the system response is introduced. The second part of the dissertation concentrates on analyzing the vulnerability of systems to FDI attacks from the perspective of the system. To this end, an off-line vulnerability analysis framework is proposed to identify the subsets of the test system that are more prone to FDI attacks. The third part studies the vulnerability of PMUs to FDI attacks. Two classes of more sophisticated FDI attacks that capture the temporal correlation of PMU data are introduced. Such attacks are designed with a convex optimization problem and can always bypass both the bad data detector and the low-rank decomposition (LD) detector. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 2017

State estimation is an important tool for power system monitoring and the present study involves integrating phasor measurement units in the state estimation process. Based on measurements taken throughout the network, the role of a state estimator is to estimate the state variables of the power system while checking that these estimates are consistent with the measurement set. In the case of power system state estimation, the state variables are the voltage phasors at each network bus.\\<p><p>The classical state estimator currently used is based on SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) measurements. Weaknesses of the SCADA measurement system are the asynchronicity of the measurements, which introduce errors in the state estimation results during dynamic events on the electrical network.\\<p><p>Wide-area monitoring systems, consisting of a network of Phasor Measurement Units (PMU) provide synchronized phasor measurements, which give an accurate snapshot of the monitored part of the network at a given time. The objective of this thesis is to integrate PMU measurements in the state estimator. The proposed state estimators use PMU measurements exclusively, or both classical and PMU measurements.\\ <p><p>State estimation is particularly useful to filter out measurement noise, detect and eliminate bad data. A sensitivity analysis to measurement errors is carried out for a state estimator using only PMU measurements and a classical state estimator. Measurement errors considered are Gaussian noise, systematic errors and asynchronicity errors. Constraints such as zero injection buses are also integrated in the state estimator. Bad data detection and elimination can be done before the state estimation, as in pre-estimation methods, or after, as in post-estimation methods. For pre-estimation methods, consistency tests are used. Another proposed method is validation of classical measurements by PMU measurements. Post-estimation is applied to a measurement set which has asynchronicity errors. Detection of a systematic error on one measurement in the presence of Gaussian noise is also analysed. \\<p><p>The state estimation problem can only be solved if the measurements are well distributed over the network and make the network observable. Observability is crucial when trying to solve the state estimation problem. A PMU placement method based on metaheuristics is proposed and compared to an integer programming method. The PMU placement depends on the chosen objective. A given PMU placement can provide full observability or redundancy. The PMU configuration can also take into account the zero injection nodes which further reduce the number of PMUs needed to observe the network. Finally, a method is proposed to determine the order of the PMU placement to gradually extend the observable island. \\<p><p>State estimation errors can be caused by erroneous line parameter or bad calibration of the measurement transformers. The problem in both cases is to filter out the measurement noise when estimating the line parameters or calibration coefficients and state variables. The proposed method uses many measurement samples which are all integrated in an augmented state estimator which estimates the voltage phasors and the additional parameters or calibration coefficients. / Doctorat en Sciences de l'ingénieur / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Os sistemas elétricos de distribuição estão evoluindo rapidamente devido à penetração de geração distribuída e ao crescimento na utilização de avançadas estruturas de medição e sistemas de gerenciamento de distribuição de energia elétrica. Esta evolução traz consigo novos desafios devido à intermitência da geração, a qual pode gerar impactos indesejáveis nos sistemas de distribuição, como a interação de diferentes harmônicos. As Unidades de Medição Fasorial (PMUs) tem potencial para desempenhar um importante papel no monitoramento de sistemas elétricos de distribuição por meio dos fasores com medidas temporalmente sincronizadas de tensão e corrente em vários locais do sistema, oferecendo assim inúmeras possibilidades para estimar o estado de uma rede de distribuição. Porém, para serem utilizadas amplamente em redes de distribuição, é necessário que as PMUs apresentem um menor custo e possuam algumas características funcionais exclusivas para o uso nestas redes. Assim, o objetivo desta tese consiste no desenvolvimento de uma unidade de medição fasorial de baixo custo com características originais para o uso no nível de distribuição de energia elétrica, tais como medição fasorial nas redes de média e baixa tensão utilizando a modelagem dos transformadores e a identificação e estimação dos parâmetros da causa de ocorrência de distúrbios elétricos. Para isso, foram construídos dois protótipos da unidade de medição fasorial proposta neste trabalho, visando verificar a sincronização na medição de fasores de tensão e corrente. Os protótipos também foram acoplados à rede com diferentes combinações de impedância e alimentaram variadas cargas, onde foi possível através das técnicas implementadas nos equipamentos identificar e estimar os parâmetros elétricos da origem (rede ou carga) da ocorrência de variações na tensão e potência fornecidas pela rede distribuição. / Power distribution systems are evolving at a high pace largely due to the proliferation of distributed energy resources and the growing utilization of advanced metering infrastructures and distribution management system. This evolution is also leading to new challenges due large penetration of intermittent distributed generation, which can lead to noticeable impacts on distribution feeders. Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) have the potential to play an essential role in power distribution system monitoring. For providing synchronized measurements of voltage and current phasors at various system locations, PMUs offer numerous possibilities for ascertaining information relating to the state of the power distribution system. However, to be used widely in power distribution systems, its necessary that PMUs get a low cost and have some exclusive features for these systems. Thus, the main objective of this thesis have consisted of developing a low cost Phasor Measurement Unit with original features proposed for distribution level, such as compatibility with low and medium voltage power networks using transformer modeling and also the identification and parameter estimation of the cause of electrical disturbances. So, they were built two prototypes of the Phasor Measurement Unit, in order to verify the synchronization in the measurement of voltage and current phasors. The prototypes were also coupled to the network with different combinations of impedance and they fed varying loads, where it was possible through the techniques implemented in the equipment identify and estimate electrical parameters of the cause (network or load) of variations in voltage and power supplied by the network distribution.

Os sistemas elétricos de distribuição estão evoluindo rapidamente devido à penetração de geração distribuída e ao crescimento na utilização de avançadas estruturas de medição e sistemas de gerenciamento de distribuição de energia elétrica. Esta evolução traz consigo novos desafios devido à intermitência da geração, a qual pode gerar impactos indesejáveis nos sistemas de distribuição, como a interação de diferentes harmônicos. As Unidades de Medição Fasorial (PMUs) tem potencial para desempenhar um importante papel no monitoramento de sistemas elétricos de distribuição por meio dos fasores com medidas temporalmente sincronizadas de tensão e corrente em vários locais do sistema, oferecendo assim inúmeras possibilidades para estimar o estado de uma rede de distribuição. Porém, para serem utilizadas amplamente em redes de distribuição, é necessário que as PMUs apresentem um menor custo e possuam algumas características funcionais exclusivas para o uso nestas redes. Assim, o objetivo desta tese consiste no desenvolvimento de uma unidade de medição fasorial de baixo custo com características originais para o uso no nível de distribuição de energia elétrica, tais como medição fasorial nas redes de média e baixa tensão utilizando a modelagem dos transformadores e a identificação e estimação dos parâmetros da causa de ocorrência de distúrbios elétricos. Para isso, foram construídos dois protótipos da unidade de medição fasorial proposta neste trabalho, visando verificar a sincronização na medição de fasores de tensão e corrente. Os protótipos também foram acoplados à rede com diferentes combinações de impedância e alimentaram variadas cargas, onde foi possível através das técnicas implementadas nos equipamentos identificar e estimar os parâmetros elétricos da origem (rede ou carga) da ocorrência de variações na tensão e potência fornecidas pela rede distribuição. / Power distribution systems are evolving at a high pace largely due to the proliferation of distributed energy resources and the growing utilization of advanced metering infrastructures and distribution management system. This evolution is also leading to new challenges due large penetration of intermittent distributed generation, which can lead to noticeable impacts on distribution feeders. Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) have the potential to play an essential role in power distribution system monitoring. For providing synchronized measurements of voltage and current phasors at various system locations, PMUs offer numerous possibilities for ascertaining information relating to the state of the power distribution system. However, to be used widely in power distribution systems, its necessary that PMUs get a low cost and have some exclusive features for these systems. Thus, the main objective of this thesis have consisted of developing a low cost Phasor Measurement Unit with original features proposed for distribution level, such as compatibility with low and medium voltage power networks using transformer modeling and also the identification and parameter estimation of the cause of electrical disturbances. So, they were built two prototypes of the Phasor Measurement Unit, in order to verify the synchronization in the measurement of voltage and current phasors. The prototypes were also coupled to the network with different combinations of impedance and they fed varying loads, where it was possible through the techniques implemented in the equipment identify and estimate electrical parameters of the cause (network or load) of variations in voltage and power supplied by the network distribution.