2004 Inbmatlonal Conference on

-
Power System Technology POWERCON 2004
Slngspore, 21-24 November 2004

Power System Dynamic Security Assessment

Via Synchrophasor Monitoring*
Jinyu Xiao, Xiaorong Xie, Hongjun Li, Jingtao Wu, Yingduo Han
student member member student member non-member senior member

representative W A M S applications in China are introduced. In

Abstracl - The rapid progress of synchrophasor technology section IV, the key functions of these WAMS, i.e., online
greatly promotes applications of wide-are measurement system monitoring, online transient stability assessment, perturbation
(WAMS) in China. In this paper, a WAMS-based dynamic identification and online analyses of low-frequency oscillation,
security assessment system @SAS) is presented. Three recently
commissioned WABIS projects, i.e., Jiangsu provincial WAMS,
are expounded in the following section. These representative
WAMS in Northern China power grid and WAMS h Three- applications and their wel1-deveIoped phasor-data platform
gorge power grid, are introduced. Monitoring power system and online analysis tools have laid a solid foundation to build a
dynamics is the direct function of those systems, and their major national-wide dynamic security monitoring and assessment
purpose is assessing the d y d c security online of the concerned system for Chinese power grid.
large-scale power girds, Key functions of the proposed systems
are expounded and their effectiveness was validated with field
test results.
E. Tm ARC- OFDSAS
DSAS is a new generation of tools to monitor power system
Index Terms - synchrophasor, WAMS, dynamic security dynamics and assess the stability and reliability of the system.
monitorhg, dynamic security assessment The data used in this system is gathered from phasor
measurement unit (PMU) 50 times per second, through broad-
I. INTRODUCTION band digital communication network, such as State Power
Data Network (SPDnet) in China. DSAS is an integrated
0 peration of modem power system in China is becoming
more and more complex and posing many challenges
every day, because of the interconnection with regional power
application system, which contains PMU, real-time digital
communication, real-time database in control center and many
grids and the dissociation of power generations and advanced software applications based on the more accurate
transmission utilities. In interconnected systems, disturbances and timelier data. And the software packages, especially the
occurring in one area will propagate in a cascading way to advanced anaIyzing software for onfine analyzing and
assessing power system dynamic security and stability, is the
other areas and thus yieId significant impact to the whoIe
kernel of the whole application system.
power system. If the cascading events are not properly
detected, assessed and controlled in a global way, they
possibly trigger a wide-are power failure, just like the August
I4 event last year in U.S. However, the energy management
system (EMS)based on the steady-state monitoring cannot I

satisfy this requirements any longer. These changes are putting control center tmliwmchir I
cclulCOf ,
pressure for the development of new-generation theory,
technology and system to supervise and control the system in a
global way ['I.
The advances in the field of communications, computers
and digital processing technologies and wide application of
Global Positional System (GPS) have enabled the use of
synchrophasor to monitoring and then assessing the large inter-
connected power system. The fundamental function of that --_
system is tracking power systems under both steady and I
dynamic state 'I, I substation n+l
lfi
This paper summarizes the recent applications of I

synchrophasor in Chinese power system. In section 11, we I

propose a general framework for the WAMS-based dynamic
security assessment system ( DSAS 1 . Then, three Fig. 1. The archirecture of DSAS

Fig. 1 shows the hierarchical architecture of the proposed

* This work is ruppmed in pm by Narianal Natural Science Foundarion of DSAS. In order to connect all the regional system, a unified
China under grant 50323002.

0-7803-8610-&1041$20.00 0 2004 IEEE 930

standard For the exchange of real-time phasor data is required. A. W U S in Jiangsuprovincialpow~rgrid
On the basis of IEEE Standard for Synchrophasors and
C37.118 IEEE Standard for Synchrophasors L4J, Chinese power
grid administration has recently issued her own standard for
the real-time dynamic security monitoringlcontrol system in
Feb. 2003 15’. The research work in these years and recent
work about the WAMS projects in China has enriched the
experience for further theoretical innovation about wide-area
power grid assessment and control ‘‘I,

fr,\ ,Subslatinn
Computation
---.

;>:$hangha1
ke *I\

hg.3 PMU placement in Jiangeu provincial WAMS

The Jiangsu provincial WAMS started at 2002, through

nearly 2 years’ effort, a WAMS with 9 PMUs, which is
installed at 7 major power plants and 2 pivotal electnc
substations (see Fig. 3 ) was commissioned [‘I. The central
station is placed at the dispatch center in Nanjing, the capital
of Jiangsu Province. With this project, the 220kV-level power
gnd is monitored in real-time and dynamic security can be
assessed online.

w h h i s Center
-c.ntr
- ~ _._i ~ ~ - ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ___ ~ ~

Fig. 2. The key software packages of DSAS.

The software packages of the whole system can be divided

into three parts according to their functions 17’. As shown in
Fig. 2, the software in PMU includes such modules as phasor
computation, error compensation and power angle estimation.
The data center and analysis center constitute the control
center of DSAS. The data center contains several modules to
resynchronize, transmit, store and manage the phasor data.
EMS and other wide-area control system can acquire the
phasor data through the “Universal Real-time Data Interface”,
which is provided by the data center platform. The key Fig.4. Phasor view of control center’s moniming took
functions of analysis center include compositive dynamic The Jiangsu provincial WAMS is the first PMU project in
monitoring module, disturbance identification module, power which a control center is set to obtain global supervision and
system dynamic characteristic analyses module and dynamic control of the concerned power grid. Experience and results
security assessment module. With the universal real-time data gained in this project are of significant importance for further
interface, new applications can be added into DSAS according
applications of WAMS in China. At PMU substation, the
to custom requirements easily.
hardware architecture with distributed data acquisition and
central data processing has been demonstrated successfully. At
the control center, a new type of real-time database is
developed, which can provide realtime-phasor-data access
Several WAMS applications have been put into use in interface. Some tools for phasor data visualization have been
China since 2003. Three representative projects are introduced implemented. Fig. 4 shows the phasor view monitoring tools.
in this section, which respectively represent WAMS The relative phasor and absolute phasor can be shown on one
applications in the Ievel of provincial, cross-provincial and circle pie synchronously, and the absolute phasor will rotate
national-wide power grids. clockwise when system frequency is lower than 50Hz. And the

931
trace of the phasor can be stored and plotted on the phasor
view, too. The alarm thresholds, calculated off line, are
denoted with different color zones, which are used for
alarming operators when steady-state stability is being
threatened.
In the control center, the EMS'S data and phasor data are
combined for state estimation every 5 minutes. The estimation
result can be used as the initial condition of the transient
stability simulation program. In this project, one of the most
important advanced applications is the online transient stability
assessment and control strategy modification.
B. WAMS in Northem China Power Grid
Beijing is a very important load center in Northern China
power grid. So. the first-stage construction of WAMS in
Northem China grid is used for monitoring the three major
power supply channels to Beijing. Three PMUs are placed at
Fengzhen plant in Inner-Mongolia Province, Datong 2"*plant
in Sanxi Province and Panshan plant in Tianjing. And the
fourth PMU is inst.alled at Jiangjiaying substation in Hebei
Province to monitor the interconnection transmission between
NorthemChina Grid and Northeastern China Grid. Fig. 5
shows the PMU placement in first-stage construction of this
project. The subsequent placement of PMUs will cover over
80 percent 500kV electric substations and power plants.
The phasor data of Northern China WAMS include not only
the positive-sequence quantities, bus also the AIBIC-phase
data. The synchrophasor measured by PMUs are transmitted to
the control center at the rate of lOOHz, which i s much faster
than that of other similar systems in the world. The control
center software is running on the SUNlSolaris platform, and
system architecture has the redundant design to ensure the high
reliability of the system. For the purpose of supervising the
reliability of power supplies to Beijing, some key functions, i.e
perturbation identification and online tracking of low-
frequency oscillation are implemented in the above project.
932
C. WAMS in Three-Gorgepower system
This WAMS was initiated by State Power Grid CO.in 2003,
and its first stage has been commissioned. Besides five PMUs
installed at the locations belong to Three-Gorge power system,
including three power plants, one electric substation and one
converting plant; the other two PMUs are placed at the
terminuses of interconnection between Northern China Grid
and Central China Grid. The control center is at the head-
quarter of State Power Grid Dispatch center in Beijing (see Fig.
6). The purpose of this project is mainly in two aspects. One i s
to monitor the operation conditions of Three-Gorge hydro-
power plants, including the automatic control systems of
generators. The other is for the State Power Grid CO. to
supervise and manage the various interconnections among
regional power grid.
___I_
I
Fig.6 MU placementin k - G o r g e Power System
w.POWER SYSTEM DYNAMIC SECUIUTY ASSESSMENT
F l J " 0 N S IN WAMS APPLICATIONS
In DSAS, the advanced applications in control center are
developed for monitoring power system dynamics and
assessing the stability and reliability. In this section, some of
the implemented functions will be discussed in more details.
A. Llynamic monitoring and post-event analyses
The PMUs calculate and record the positive-sequence
voltage phasor, current phasor, active power, reactive power
and frequency at a rate of SoHz or higher, and these data is
transmitted to their corresponding control center in real time.
The operators can track the power system dynamics with those
phasor data.
Dynamic curve monitoring, including the reactive power
monitoring, is a common tool in DSAS's control center. Even
if the voltage magnitudes are within an acceptable range,
voltages are still insecure if the reactive power sources are
near their limits. The PMU placement not only in Jiangsu
Province bus also in Northern China grid covers the major
generation plants for the concerned loadcenter. The reactive
power monitoring encourages operators to observe the
sensitive indicators of voltage security. A basic operating
strategy is to apply mechanicalIy switched capacitor banks to
keep large amount of reactive power reserves in major
generators 19'. The relative phase angle monitor, which is
shown in Fig, 4, is another important tool for angle stability
monitoring. The magnitude of the relative phase angle between
generator and substation is a direct indicator for the status of
power system steady-state stability. The relative angle
thresholds are calculated with off-line simulation. So the
online operation conditions of major generators can be
monitored by the phasor view directly. These monitoring
functions are basically and well developed for those mentioned
recent WAMS projects in China.
The history data servers at control center can log the power
system events at its highest resolution of phasor data. The
following diagrams (Fig. 8 and 9) show the logged events,
which occurred in Jiangsu provincial power grid, on 12:40,
Oct. 28,2003.
12
Bur Valagrr MqnaMe
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go9
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U7
m51a~i24u~ 8 30 12 14 16 18
P M 1 5
Fig.8. Bus voltage magnitudes during the disturbance
transient simulation is re-estimated by the EMS steady-state
information and synchronized relative voltage angles from
WAMS. The transient stability status, which is changed with
the operation point, can be assessed by scanning all the
possible faults of the concerned gird within several minutes.
Then, the off-line-made conservative transient stability control
strategies can be evaluated and meliorated according to the
transient simulation result with real operation information. The
evaluated control strategies include shedding and active power
redispatching control of generation. Fig.iO shows the brief
O n h !r&usienr stability
asseJsment and conml
Provincial EMS Provincial
Fig.10. The architecture of online transient stability assessment system
As well known, the consumed time of' transient simulation is
directly restricted by the grid scale and model type. Therefore,
this application has been put into use in Jiangsu provincial
power grid. In order to accelerate the simulation speed, some
improvement has made on the transient stability simulation
a. Reduce the iteration times of the network equations by
using the compositive admittance of fault port;
b. Reduce the dimension of the factor table by dynamic
optimization for the node numbering;
2a 12 24
c. Reduce the number of simulation step by terminating
simulation with criterion of instability.
The following table lists the performance of this application.
Grid operator can evaluate the offfine-made transient control
strategies and decide change them whether or not.

6oo
Table I. Application performance of online transient stability assessment and

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Wang 2* GI
I 4
2M~W8124MM 8 10 I2 14 i6 18 3l 22 24
u a l .

Fig 9. Bus voltage angle in main power plant during the disturbance

From these diagrams, analyst can recognize that four events,

two short-circuit faults, a line tripping event and a subsequent
generator shedding at Yangzhou 2"d power plant, happened in
sequence. These logged events and corresponding field data
are also important for model and parameter validation of
computer simulations, and for post-event reconstruction of
major disturbance.
B. Ontine rrunsient stabiliry assessment and control srraregy C. Perturbation identification
modificationin provincial power grid Following a perturbation, the rapid recognition and analysis
The online transient stability assessment system is based on of disturbances leads safe, economic operations with good
a faster-than-real time transient stability simulation software understanding of system conditions "I. Restricted by the
package in DSAS's analysis center. The initial condition of communication channel, operator cannot know the exact

933
location and type of system disturbance in time. The function developed in DTLFO software package "". The frequency of
for accurate fault localization is belongs to the relay dominant lightly damped mode in this event is about 0.26Hz.
information system, but the dense and accurate synchrophasor
data from WAMS real-time database can meet the
requirements for the application on disturbance identification
in transmission system. The major targets of this function in
DSAS are:
a. Classify the disturbance by types, such as short-circuit
fault, line tripping, generator shedding, etc;
b. Determine the time order of the multi-events;
c. Find the approximate location of disturbance.
Considering the computing load of the servers, the main I
substations and key plants' information, including voltage 2w51~4519W53 57 9 49111
IlmaIS
lE 117 W

magnitudelangle, current magnitude/angle and activdreactive Fig.11. The Captured low-frequency oscillationplot of active power
power need to be concemed in the identification process.
Essentially three categories of power system perturbations are
taken into account: shunt event, short-circuit event and out-of-
step event. The criterions for disturbance recognition are based
on some basic knowledge of power system, similar to the
principles of relay protection. The identification result can be
obtained by analyzing the variation of corresponding phasor
data and topology search of the power grid.
The control center of Northern China WAMS can gather the
synchronized three-phase voltage/current phasor data at a rate
of 100Hz. This feature leads the more detailed result in this
function. The faulted phase information of that short-circuit
disturbance, which is shown in Fig. 8 and 9, can be identified I: 60 --+ ~~ I . I-~ .
I J

with the synchronous individual-phase data. The user interface
of this online function is shown in Fig. 5. When the
disturbance type and Iocation is identified and confirmed by
the online analysis module, one or several alerting signal will
keep Dashing in the geographic singie-line diagram
automatically and in time, to alarm the operators. The detailed
description about that disturbance is sent to operator's mailbox
simultaneously.
D. Online Zow-frequency oscillation monitoring a d analysis
Modern electrical power systems are complex, generally
consisting of a large number of different dynamic devices.
They are exposed to sudden small disturbances in load,
generation and transmission network, which may cause low-
frequency power oscillation due to insufficient damping. The
oscillation and weak damping may be caused by the adverse
operating conditions '"'. Low-frequency oscillations tend to
occur along heavily-loaded tie lines of interconnected power
systems, for instance, the 5OOKV AC transmission chain
between Ertan Hydro power plant in Sichuan Province and
Yiming power plant in Heilongjiang Province, which is nearly
4,600 kilometers long.
Fig. 1 1 and 12 shows an oscillation event captured at
interconnection tie line and analyzed by dynamic tracking low-
frequency oscillation (DTLFO) software package within
DSAS. As well known, Prony analysis is an accurate
frequency-domain analysis algorithm, but there are many
problems, such as order estimation and noise-proof feature,
need to be salved when it's used for online application. An
improved online: Prony method is purposed and well-
Rg.12 Th, 3-D time-variation spectrum plot
The Fig. 12 shows the time-variation spectrum by three
dimensions, and the X-axis is frequency, Y-axis is time and Z-
axis is the relative amplitude. This 3-D diagram demonstrates
that within the observed time data, the dominant oscillation
mode concentrates in the same frequency approximately, and
the variation of the relative amplitude denotes the damping
coefficient in time series. This recorded event illustrates that
DTLFO application in WAMS can track the oscillation
procedure and get the dominant modes in real time.
v. CONCLUSlONS
WAMS application has gained rapid development in China.
In this paper, several important WAMS projects recently
commissioned have been described with the emphasis to
present their functions of dynamic security assessment via
synchrophasor monitoring. These functions include dynamic
monitoring & post-event analysis, online transient stability
assessment & control strategy modification, perturbation
identification and online low-frequency oscillation tracking &
analysis. Some field results are also reported, which verify the
effectiveness of the proposed DSAS. The rapid and fruitful
application of WAMS applications lays a solid foundation for
developing a national wide-area supervision & control system
to prevent serious power blackout.
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934
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935
VI. BIOeWl5ES
Jhyu Xiao (stdent memh'O4) was born io Chongqing, P. R. China on
September 25, 1977. He received his B.S. degree in Tsinghua University in
2000. He is pursuing his Ph. D.degree in Tsinghua University. His areas of
research interest are power system stability conEo1 and dynamic security
assessment and control for large-scale power system.
Xie Xiaorong (M'02) was bom in Hunan province China in 1975. He
obtained his B.E.from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1996 and M.E. h m
Tsinghua University in 2001. Since graduation, he w o k as ad assistant
II department of Elecmcal Enginering at Tsinghua University.
researcher ~the
China. His research interests include Flexible AC Transmission Systems and
Synchrophasor applications.
Hongjun Li , received the Electrical Power System and Automation degree
€mm the Northeast Agnculture University in 1993, the Master degree kom
Northeast Electrical Power University in 1996. From 1996-2001, he worked
in Heilongjiang electric power designing institute in P.R.Cbina. Now He is
currently a PH.D candidate in Tsinghua Univeristy and his thesis will
concentrate on WAMS application in on-line power system transient stability
analysis and conml.
Jingtao Wu was born in Beijing P.R. China in 1970. He received his B A ,
M.S. and Ph.D. degree in Tsinghua University in 1995,1998 and 2001
respectively. Since graduation, he works as a engineer in SiFang Tongchuang
Protection and Control CO. Ltd Reijing P.R.China,in charge of developing
PMU-based dynamic monitoring and control system CSS-200.
Yingduo Han, Professor of the Dept. of Electrical Engineering of Tsin&ua
University, member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and senior
member of IEEE. He was horn in 1938 in Liaonine Province of China.
He received his electrical engineering degree and master degree from
Tsinghua University in 1962 and in 1965 respectively, doctor degree from
was vice-chairman and chairman of the E.E. Deoamnent. From 1489 to 1999.