Real Time Detection and Control of Loss of

Synchronism using Energy Function Criterion and

Phase Sequence Exchange Technique
Nitesh Singh Saikat Chakrabarti Ankush Sharma
Department of Electrical Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Kanpur, India Kanpur, India Kanpur, India
niteshs20@iitk.ac.in saikatc@iitk.ac.in ansharma@iitk.ac.in
2022 IEEE PES Innovative Smart Grid Technologies - Asia (ISGT Asia) | 979-8-3503-9966-0/22/$31.00 ©2022 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ISGTASIA54193.2022.10003626

Abstract—Transient instability is a well-known problem in a
power grids. The severe faults in the power grid may lead to
blackout, if proper out-of-step protection is not implemented.
Phase sequence exchange (PSE) is a newly developed emergency
control technique, in which power electronic devices are used to
change the phase sequence, thereby reducing the power angle of
an equivalent dual power supply system by 120° and preventing
the system from becoming unstable. This paper proposes a fast
and accurate technique for controlling PSE devices by generating
switching signals using local measurement after detection of
unstable swings and shows the effectiveness of PSE in stabilizing
a multi-machine system. The proposed technique uses energy
function for determining unstable swing. The proposed technique
has been tested on the IEEE 39-bus test system on a real-time
digital simulator (RTDS), and the results show that the proposed
control technique for the PSE device is effective.
Index Terms—Energy function, phase sequence exchange, tran-
sient instability, control technique, local measurement, unstable
swing.
I. I NTRODUCTION
this change and gets activated. On activation, PSE reverses the
phase sequence across the line and thereby prevents the system
from getting out of step, without implementing conventional
emergency control.
Many countries interconnect their regional grid to form
a central grid functioning at one frequency. India has also
synchronously connected its regional grids in order to encour-
age one nation one grid. These interconnections may undergo
unstable power swing due to some severe disturbance, which
results in the splitting of the grid, and at last, the islanded grid
may collapse. These splitting can be avoided by stabilizing the
system using the PSE technique.
References [7], [8] propose the mechanism for implement-
ing phase sequence exchange technology to improve stability
of AC transmission system. The design of a solid state device
for PSE was proposed in [9], [10], and a scheme to reduce the
impulse current and torque produced by PSE is suggested in
[11]. Reference [12] proposes the use of PSE technique in a

T RANSIENT instability is a serious issue affecting the

power system in regular operation. After a disturbance
such as a fault, the system may experience a power swing.
Depending upon the severity of the disturbance, the power
swing can be either stable or unstable [1]. Unstable swing
may lead to unintentional islanding, uncontrolled tripping of a
generator,cascade outages, and may further lead to widespread
blackout [2]. In recent years, there has been significant
penetration of power electronic interfaced renewable energy
sources. As a result, the inertia power of the grid has decreased
[3]–[5]. Implementing conventional emergency control tech-
niques such as generator shedding, load shedding, and area
splitting may further reduce the inertia. Another issue with
these techniques is that they help to stabilize the system by
undermining the grid’s integrity [6].
If successfully implemented, the phase sequence exchange
technique can solve problems associated with conventional
emergency control methods [7]. In the PSE technique, when-
ever a system is experiencing an unstable swing, the PSE
device, which is a solid-state device connected on the lines
across which the system is divided into two areas, realizes
multi-machine system. Reference [13] proposes that the PSE
device be pre-installed in the tie lines of the power grid and
control these devices using local measurement.
In [13], the criterion for activation of PSE devices depends
on the power angle across a tie-line (member of a cutset). The
PSE devices placed on all the lines in the cutset get activated
simultaneously, subject to the predefined constant threshold
violation. However, it may cause unnecessary switching of
PSE devices, as the presented control technique for PSE
devices does not distinguish between stable or unstable swings.
It may significantly decrease the lifespan of the PSE devices.
The above shortcoming makes the control scheme inefficient.
In this work, a fast and accurate technique for controlling
PSE devices using local measurement is presented, which has
effectively overcome the above-stated problem. The condition
for activation of PSE devices are derived from energy function
analysis. The proposed technique uses only the local power
flow and power angle of the line where the PSE device is
pre-installed. Instantaneous power flow is evaluated based on
the local voltage and current information. The effectiveness of
proposed control technique has been tested on the IEEE 39-

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 bus 10-machine test system [14] using the real-time digital
simulator (RTDS). Hence, the present work improves the A A'
shortcomings of the previously presented techniques for pre- B B'
Area Area
venting the grid from losing synchronism and helps the system A B
to remain stable when subjected to a severe disturbance. The C C'
main contribution of this work are as follows. PSE Device
1) An effective real time out-of-step protection methodol-
ogy using energy function and phase sequence exchange
A A'
technology without generator tripping and load shed-
ding. This technique is easy to implement as a protection AREA B B' AREA
algorithm because it is based on local measurement. A B
C C'
2) The proposed methodology has been tested and validated
in a real-time simulation environment. PSE Device
The rest of the paper is organized into four sections.
Improved control techniques for PSE devices using energy Fig. 2. Phase Sequence Exchange (PSE) connection before and after operation
function have been explained in Section II. Section III presents
the results obtained from the simulation on IEEE 39 bus test
system using RTDS. Further improvement in the proposed B. Identification of Unstable Swings using Transient Energy
technique has been explained in Section IV, which concludes Function
the paper. Transient energy function describes the total energy gained
II. I MPROVED C ONTROL T ECHNIQUE FOR PSE D EVICES by the system after the disturbance, which is defined as,
USING E NERGY F UNCTION VE = VP E + VKE (1)
A. Phase Sequence Exchange Emergency Control Method
For a stable swing,
After a severe disturbance, power system gains additional VE < VEcr (2)
kinetic energy due to which the power angle of the lines
forming the cutset keeps on increasing, and it may result where VP E and VKE are the post-disturbance transient poten-
in splitting of the power grid into two areas across the line tial and kinetic energy, respectively. VEcr is the critical value
forming cutset, [15] as shown in Fig. 1 of energy function which is the energy gained by the system
with respect to critical clearing. The expression of the potential
energy of a transmission line l connecting two bus i and j is,
 t
dδl
V P El = (Pl − Pls ) dt (3)
to dt
AREA AREA |Vi ||Vj |
A B Pl = sin δl (4)
xl
δl = φi − φj (5)
where VP El is the potential energy of line l, Pl is the power
flow in the transmission line l, Pls is the steady-state value of
n Cutset lines
Pl , |Vi | and |Vj | are the bus voltage magnitude at bus i (in
area A) and j (in area B), respectively, xl is the reactance of
Fig. 1. Coherent areas.
line l, φi and φj are the bus voltage angle at bus i (in area A)
The cutset across which splitting takes place is known as the and j (in area B) and δl is the phase angle difference across
critical cutset. Phase sequence exchange technology (PSET) the line l, [16].
is a real-time emergency control technology, in which, when Assuming coherent areas, the entire system can be approxi-
the PSE device on cutset lines gets activated, it changes the mated as a two-generator system [15]. The potential energy of
phase connections from A-A’, B-B’, and C-C’ to A-C’, B-A’ lines within the two regions is zero (as dδ l
dt is zero for the lines
and C-B’, as shown in Fig. 2. This instantaneously reduces within the area). The potential energy is present only within
the power angle by 120°. Reducing the power angle will not the critical cutset lines and, hence, VP E can be expressed as,
n  t
affect the kinetic energy instantaneously, but it reduces the dδl
potential energy of the system and hence brings the swing VP E = (Pl − Pls ) dt (6)
to dt
back to the deceleration area, as shown in Fig. 3. In this way, k=1

unstable swings are damped and the system is prevented from where n is the total number of line belonging to the critical
splitting. cutset.

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 The kinetic energy, VKE , that causes the system to split, where Vi is the voltage of bus i, Vj is the voltage of bus j
is the same as that of an equivalent infinite-bus one-generator with respect to bus Vi , Il is current in line l joining bus i and
system with inertia constant Meq and angular speed ωeq [15] j and Zl is the impedance of line l. When the condition for
and, hence, VKE can be expressed as, unstable swing is detected, the switching signal is transmitted
1 to the PSE devices on lines of the critical cutset. After the
2
VKE = Meq (ωeq ) (7) operation of PSE, the phase angle of the line gets reduced by
2
120◦ , and its total potential energy gets reduced and becomes
where  δm  δm −120◦
MA MB dδl VP El = (Pl − Pls )dδl + (Pl − Pls )dδl (10)
Meq = , ωeq = ωA − ωB = δ◦ δm
M A + MB dt
  which is simplified as,
MA = Mi , MB = Mi  δm −120◦
i∈area A i∈area B
VP El = (Pl − Pls )dδl (11)
Mi is the inertia constant of generator i, ωA and ωB are the δ◦

generator speeds in area A and area B, respectively. Hence, As a result, the system’s total energy reduces below its critical
the kinetic energy given by (7) can be written as follows: value (2), which prevents the system from losing synchronism.
 2 The above technique is summarized by the flow chart as shown
1 dδl
VKE = Meq (8) in Fig.4.
2 dt
For the system to have an unstable swing, its kinetic energy Start
must be greater than zero when potential energy within any
line of critical cutset attains its maximum value, which occurs
Fault clearing
at point d, as shown in Fig. 3. Potential energy in a line given
by (3) attains its maximum value when Pl = Pls . Kinetic
energy of a system given by (8) directly depends on | dδ dt | and
l Real-time monitoring of and Activate all the PSE
devices in the Critical
hence, it will be greater than zero for | dδ
dt
l
| > 0. For positive at the cut-set lines
cutset lines
(t) (t−τ ) (t) (t−τ )
slope, |δl | > |δl |, where δl | and δl is the sample
of δl measured at the instants t and t − τ , t is the current Yes
sampling instant and τ is the sampling period. Yes

No No

Pre-Fault Stop

Fig. 4. Flow chart for proposed control technique

c Post-Fault
b

a
III. S IMULATION R ESULTS
d The effectiveness of the presented control technique was
Fault tested on the IEEE 39-bus 10-machine test system [14]. The
single line diagram of the test system is shown in Fig. 5. The
simulation were carried out on RTDS platfom.
In order to create a severe disturbance, a three-phase fault
of duration 0.26s was simulated at bus 17 of Fig. 5, which
Fig. 3. Pl -δl curve of critical cutset line
made the system attain an unstable swing. It can be verified
by Fig. 6 that the power angle of lines 2-1 and 8-9 gradually
increases due to additional kinetic energy gained by the system
C. Control Technique during the fault period, which splits the system into the two
From the above discussion, the condition for unstable swing areas along these lines, forming a critical cutset. The power
(t) flow along these lines corresponds to the unstable swing, as
is as follows: when Pl = Pls system is unstable if |δl | >
(t−τ )
|δl |. Pl and δl of a cutset line continuously monitored. shown in Fig. 7.
Pl obtained from a local measurement at one end of the line, When the absolute value of the slope of power angle of
while δl is calculated by measuring voltage and current at one any of these lines (8-9, 2-1) is non-zero when the power flow
end of a line and knowing the line impedance using along that line attains its pre-fault steady-state value, the PSE
devices in these lines get activated. As soon as the PSE device
Vj = Vi + jIl Zl (9) gets triggered, the power angle across these lines gets reduced

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 200
2-1
150 8-9

100

(Deg)
50

l
0

-50

-100
0 2 4 6 8 10
time(s)

Fig. 8. Power angle curve across the critical cutset line 2-1 and 8-9 after
PSE operation

by 120°, as shown in Fig. 8, bringing back the system to

deceleration mode, which dampens this unstable power swing,
as shown in Fig. 9, thus preventing the system from losing
synchronism. A set of PSE devices activated for fault at a
different location is shown in Table I.

20
2-1
Fig. 5. Single line diagram of IEEE 39-bus 10-machine test system [14] 8-9
P (p.u.) 10

200
8-9 0
l

2-1
100
-10
(Deg)

0
-20
0 2 4 6 8 10
l

time(s)
-100

Fig. 9. Power flow in the critical cutset line 2-1 and 8-9 after PSE operation
-200
0 1 2 3 4 5
The collected results demonstrate the effective performance
time(s)
of the proposed control technique for PSE devices. The suc-
Fig. 6. Power angle curve across the critical cutset line 2-1 and 8-9, illustrating cessful real-time testing using RTDS shows that the proposed
an unstable swing scheme can work effectively on an existing power system.
As the implemented control technique requires local measure-
ment, which avoids long-distance communication, it is fast and
20
8-9 reliable.
2-1
10 IV. C ONCLUSION
This paper presents an accurate control technique to
Pl (p.u.)

0 apply PSE using energy function analysis, which makes the

PSE emergency control method more efficient. In the prior
-10 method, the control parameter of the PSE device was the
power angle, and the PSE device gets activated when the
power angle across the critical line crosses the predefined
-20
0 1 2 3 4 5 threshold value. Crossing any fixed threshold value does not
time(s) convey whether the system becomes unstable, which would
cause unnecessary switching of the PSE device even when
Fig. 7. Power flow in the critical cutset line 2-1 and 8-9 for unstable case the system gets stabilized by itself without any switching.

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533
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on which PSE devices are pre-installed (cutset lines). Real-
time testing results using RTDS show that it can be applied
to practical systems. The performance of PSE can further
increase by implementing a prediction algorithm to predict
the unstable swing and activating the PSE device, as it will
result in more reduction in the potential energy of the system.

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