Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) Based Wide
Area Protection System
ShabanaUrooj
(Senior Member IEEE)
Electrical Engineering Department, School of Engineering
Gautam Buddha University, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh,
INDIA
Email Id:shabanaurooj@ieee.org
Abstract: Phasor measurement units (PMUs) are influential
means for power systems to improve the possibilities of
monitoring and analyzing their dynamics. Measurement of
phase angles between corresponding phasors in different
locations is directly possible within the power
system/substation with the help of synchronized
measurement. More efficient way of utilizing the existing
power system can be considered by improved monitoring and
remedial action capabilities allowed on network operators.
Fast and reliable emergency actions lead to potential power
system disturbances by reduction in relatively high
transmission margins. A wide area protection system based
on phasor measurement unit (PMU) has been proposed. This
scheme allows identification of various faults by utilizing data
collected from various PMUs at different locations in the
power system.
Keywords –PMU, Synchronized, Voltage, WAP, Zones
I. INTRODUCTION
A real-time monitoring system collects “real-time information”
of the transmission system using Intelligent Electronic Devices
(IEDs) and PLC-SCADA which collect measurements of
selected system elements at various time intervals. The
measurements taken at generators and substations at selected
points can be stored in local computer databases or send to
remote computer databases through telecommunication lines.
Real time information about the transmission system’s
“functional status “can be obtained by operator such as amount
of sag on the line etc., direct measurements such as power flow
in the line, switching status of the transmission line and
interconnection frequency is also measured by such data.
Information about whether the equipment is being overloaded
or not can also be calculated from such information [1].
The most challenging task is detection and classification of
different faults for an interconnected system [1].Various
attempts were carried out to identify faults using fault
component voltage distribution[2].
In [3] a MATLAB software based PMU simulator is given.
Different tools are required to deal with problems of electricity
supply industries such as wide area disturbance propagation
978-9-3805-4416-8/15/$31.00 2015
c IEEE 597
VaniSood
Electrical Engineering Department, School of Engineering
Gautam Buddha University, Greater Noida, Uttar
Pradesh,INDIA
Email Id:vanisood123@gmail.com
which could be a combination of voltage excursions, high
equipment loadings and high power transfers, voltage
instability/collapse, etc. that often cause widespread blackouts
in power system networks. The performance of protective
relays during wide-area stressed power system conditions has
been described in [4].
Various communication needs for different applications of
wide area measurement in fields like power system monitoring
and coordination of backup zones have been studied in detail
in [5] & [12]. Now a days Wide-area protection (WAP) has
become a challenging problem and important aspect in the
power industry.
This paper has been divided into six sections. Section II
reviews the basic concepts of phasor measurement technology
and the single line to ground fault. Section III gives the idea of
the proposed protection scheme. Section IV discusses the fault
identification process and its implementation. Section V
represents the results of the simulation. Section VI provides
concluding remarks and the future scope of the proposed
scheme. This paper presents a unique approach to detect and
classify fault for interconnected systems using time
synchronized phasor measurements.
II. FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS
PMU technology provides real time information for the
magnitude and phase angle of voltage and current at various
locations in the power system.
A representation of a pure sinusoidal waveform can be a
unique complex number known as a phasor[10]& [11].
Consider the following sinusoidal signal
‫ݔ‬ሺ‫ݐ‬ሻ ൌ ܺ௠ …‘•ሺ‫ ݐݓ‬൅ ߮ሻ(1)
The phasor representation of this sinusoidal is given by
௑೘ ௑೘
‫ݔ‬ሺ‫ݐ‬ሻ ൌ ݁ ௝ఝ ൌ ሺ…‘• ߮ ൅ ݆ •‹ ߮ሻ(2)
ξଶ ξଶ
Here the signal frequency w is not directly stated in the phasor
representation. The phasor magnitude is the rms value of the
௑
sinusoid ೘ and its phase angle is ij i.e. the phase angle of the
ξଶ
signal in (1). Fig. 2 illustrates the sinusoidal signal and its
phasor representation as given by equations (1) and (2)
[8].Note that the measurement of the positive phase angles is
always done in the anticlockwise direction from the real axis.
[6]& [7].

A. Phasor Measurement Technology

PMUs have the ability to measure Positive sequence voltages
and currents, Phase voltages and currents, Local frequency,
Local rate of change of frequency, Circuit breaker and switch
status (synchronously) which leads to their application in wide
area protection systems [9],[10] & [13]. The importance of this
technology lies in the fact that it allows synchronization of
sampling process for different signals which may be located
miles apart, which makes it feasible to put their phasors on the Fig. 1. Simulink model of the proposed scheme
same phasor diagram. In other words accurate comparison of
potential real-time measurement based control actions as well The above model implements 400KV system with 5 buses.
as precise time synchronized measurements over widely PMUs are present at each bus.
separated locations can be done using this technology [12].

B. Single Line to Ground Fault V. RESULTS

An LG fault is a type of asymmetrical fault caused by short
circuit between any one line and the ground. it is the most
commonly occurring faults in a power system.Voltage sag is
one of the effects of such a fault, it is a decrease in rms voltage
for a short period of time particularly fraction of seconds until
the protective devices operate.

III. PROPOSED SCHEME

The proposed scheme is based on two basic components for the
identification of the major and minor faults in the power
system. The first component is that the fault occurrence can
reduce voltage. The second component is that after fault
occurrence; direction of power flow can be altered. The idea
has been used to identify a single line to ground fault on the
transmission line by using the three phase sequence analyzer
which works similar to the phasor measurement unit by
providing the voltages of the three sequences. Work has been
done on the MATLAB 7.8.0(R2009a) software to implement
the scheme. Positive sequence voltage has been used for
identifying the faulted bus.

IV. IMPLEMENTATION OF FAULT IDENTIFICATION

Sim Power System doesn't provide a generic block called
PMU. However they provide many basic blocks that can
measure all various values output by the PMU block. The
Three-Phase Sequence Analyzer block is one such block which
is used in the proposed model which outputs the magnitude and
phase of the positive, negative, and zero-sequence components
of a set of three balanced or unbalanced signals. The signals (a) (b)
may or may not contain harmonics
Fig. 2. Three phase voltage signals (a) In stable condition and (b) After the
fault has occurred

598 2015 2nd International Conference on Computing for Sustainable Global Development (INDIACom)

(a)
(b)
Fig. 3.Positive sequence voltage (a) In stable condition and (b) After the fault
has occurred
To test the proposed scheme a line to ground fault (A-G Type)
of 0.1ȍ was created in the system at 0.17 secs and the
corresponding results obtained are shown in fig 2 and fig 3.The
PMU in this scheme gives the magnitude of the positive
sequence component of the voltage signal. From Figure 2 and 3
it is clear that before the occurrence of the fault the system
remains in stable conditions. Once the fault has occurred there
is a voltage sag and the fault duration is from 0.17seconds to
0.34seconds (voltage sag duration), after which the system
returns to its stable condition. During the sag the phase A
voltage drops to zero while the other two phase voltages remain
closer to their pre-fault values as shown in figure 2 (a).from
figure 3 it is clear that the faulted voltage Va is suppressed by a
large phase angle jump.
VI. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE
The paper outlines the idea of detecting and classifying faults
using PMU’s in an interconnected system. The scheme is used
to identify the fault by using the output of the three phase
sequence analyzer for immediate corrective action on the
power system. The present scenario in the field of classification
and interconnected grid protection can be identified with this
research work. The idea is to have a central main protection
unit for collecting and storing the data and forwarding the
2015 2nd International Conference on Computing for Sustainable Global Development (INDIACom)
tripping signal in case of even small faults. The idea has been
implemented using MATLAB 7.8.0(R2009a).The idea can be
further enhanced by using a 3 source nine bus system.
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