Combined use of PCA and Prony Analysis for
Electromechanical Oscillation Identification
A. Bosisio
A. Berizzi
G. R. Moraes
R. Nebuloni
Department of energy
Politecnico di Milano
Via La Masa, 34 20165 Milano Italy
Abstract—In this study, a new PMU-based method of identi-
fication of electromechanical oscillations is presented exploiting
Principal Components Analysis (PCA). The proposed method
makes it possible to carry out analysis on a limited number of
the so-called Princial Components (PCs), obtaining information
on the behavior of voltages and currents at buses following a
small perturbation. The analysis is completed using the Prony
analysis on the PCs, which is able to determine the amplitude,
frequency and damping of a mode. To assess the effectiveness
of the method, the algorithm has been applied on a test system
based on the Kundur Two-area system as well as on a real event.
Index Terms—Electromechanical Oscillation, Mode identifi-
cation, Power system dynamics, Principal component analysis,
Prony analysis.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Electromechanical oscillations have been widely studied in
the literature since the development of the first interconnected
power systems [1]. Over the years, the development of many
technologies and regulators affected the damping properties of
the system, what may lead to unstable conditions or inadequate
performance of operations [2], such that the problem has
always been of interest for stability studies.
The electromechanical oscillation modes are usually clas-
sified as follows as interplant, local or interarea modes. The
interplant modes are associated with oscillations between units
in the same power plant, and their frequency range is between
1.2 and 2.5 Hz. The local modes are associated with the
swinging of one generator or power plant against the rest
of the power system, with frequency of oscillations ranging
from 1 to 2 Hz. The interarea modes are associated with
the swinging of one geographically well defined group of
synchronous machines against other groups. The frequency
of this mode of oscillations ranges from 0.2 to 1 Hz.
Traditionally, the analysis of such modes has been approa-
ched through small perturbation stability models and modal
analysis regarding an operation point around which the sy-
stem is linearized. The so-called Linear Ringdown Analysis
methods are based on data following transient events and are
widely spread and established, being the Prony method, ERA
(Eigensystem Realization Algorithm), and the Pencil Method
G. Giannuzzi
R. Zaottini
C. Maiolini
TERNA S.p.a.
Via Egidio Galbani, 70 00156 Roma Italy
the most well-known [3]. However, due to the complexity that
power systems have gained, they are hard to perform and valid
only for the point of interest, limiting their use [3], [4].
As an alternative, system identification methods are also
able to provide modal information. With the recent deployment
of the Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs), that provide am-
bient data of voltage and current acquired in various points of
the grid, interest arises on the development of new techniques
for system identification in real time. In between the methods
that have been studied, the subspace identification methods are
some of the most prominent techniques. They include seve-
ral algorithms whereby the state-space realization is directly
obtained from the measured system inputs and outputs. The
linear system parameters are obtained from the row or column
subspaces of certain matrices that vary according to the chosen
method. Some examples of these applications can be found
in [4]–[8]. Alternative approaches are spectral analysis, [9]–
[12], or the use of statistical properties in a hybrid model-
measurement based method for estimation of the dynamic
matrix of the system [13], [14].
The present study is focused on the use of PMU da-
ta for electromechanical oscillations identification, exploiting
Principal Components Analysis (PCA), a very powerful tool
that allows the reduction of the order of a system [15].
The technique is based on multivariate statistics analysis that
allows to transform a number of possibly correlated variables
into a smaller set of variables called Principal Components
(PCs) [16]. Then, the output of the PCA is evaluated through
Prony Analysis, to identify the frequency and the damping of
the modes under study.
The remaining of this paper is organized as follows: in
section II-A PCA is explained while Prony analysis is pre-
sented in II-B. Section III presents the proposed identification
algorithm. In section IV results on a test system based on the
Kundur Two-area system and on a real event are presented,
while conclusions are presented in section V.
 II. BASIS OF P RINCIPAL C OMPONENT A NALYSIS AND the rows of P are the new basis for the representation of the
P RONY A NALYSIS columns of X; these are the PCs directions, while Y is the
A. Principal Component Analysis matrix of the PCs.
The new set of variables (Y) are called scores, that are the
PCA is a statistical procedure which uses a vector space
representation of the initial data set in the PCs space.
transformation to reduce the dimension of a large data set
Coefficients of the PCs (P) are called loadings and can
to a small set that still contains most of the information in
be considered as the weights for each original variable when
the large data set. In linear algebra, the definition of this
calculating the PC.
transformation takes place expressing the new set of data as a
An important issue of PCA is the concept of uncorrelation
linear combination of the original one. Using a mathematical
between PCs in the new basis. This is proved considering the
projection, the original data set can be interpreted in just a few
variance of the data in the original basis which is defined, for
variables, called Principal Components (PCs). This analysis
a random variable Z, as:
allows a more easy examination of spot trends, patterns and
outliers in the data.
σZ2 = E[(Z − µ)2 ] (6)
Considering a data set represented by the following m × n
matrix X where µ is the mean.
  The best way to uncorrelate the original data is to find
x11 x12 . . . x1n
 x21 x22 . . . x2n  the directions where variance is maximized and use these
X= .
 
(1) directions to define the new basis. Considering a 1×n row
.. .. .. 
 .. . . .  vector r=[r1 ,r2 ,. . . ,rn ] scaled by its mean value µr , the variance
xm1 xm2 . . . xmn is given by:
where the m rows, which represent variables, contain n 1
σr2 = rrT (7)
columns each, which represent samples, the goal of PCA is n−1
to transform matrix X into a new matrix Y, with the same If we have a second 1×n row vector s=[s1 ,s2 ,. . . ,sn ] with
dimensions of X, so that zero mean, we can define the concept of covariance, which
can be considered as the measure of how much two variables
Y = PX (2) will change together:
P is a m × m matrix defined as follows: 1
2
σrs = rsT (8)
n−1
 
p11 p12 . . . p1m
 p21 p22 . . . p2m  Extending the approach to the matrix X with m rows and
P= . (3)
 
.. .. ..  n columns, which contains all the samples of a particular
 .. . . . 
variable in a row, we can define the following symmetrical
pm1 pm2 . . . pmm
square matrix:
Assuming the following quantities:
x1 x1 T x1 x2 T x1 xm T
 
• pk are the rows of P of size 1×m, k=1,2,. . . ,m; ...
T x2 x2 T T
• xi are the columns of X of size m×1, i=1,2,. . . ,n; 1 1  x2 x1
 ... xm x2 
CX = XXT = (9)

 . . .. . 
• yi are the columns of Y of size m×1, i=1,2,. . . ,n. n−1 n − 1  .. .
. . . 
.
Equation (2) can be re-written as: xm x1 T xm x2 T ... xm xm T


p1
 
p1 x1 p1 x2 ... p 1 xn
 The diagonal elements of the matrix are the variances while
 p2     p2 x1 p2 x2 ... p 2 xn  the off-diagonal elements are the covariances (the matrix is
PX =  .  x1 x2 ... xn =  . . . =Y
   
..
 . 
.
 .
.
.
. . . 
. called Covariance Matrix). Covariance can be considered as
pm pm x1 pm x2 ... pm xn a measure of how two or more variables are correlated each
(4)
other. PCA definition aims at finding directions such that the
variables in the transformed matrix are as uncorrelated as
Considering a generic column of Y
possible which means that the covariance of different variables

p1 x i
 has to be as low as possible.
 p2 x i  In order to determine the matrix of transformed data Y=PX,
yi =  .  (5) the following constraints on the covariance matrix CY :
 
 .. 
• maximize the information of each variable, measured by
pm x i variance (diagonal elements);
We have now that the jth coefficient of yi (pj xi ) is a • minimize the covariance between the transformed

projection of xi onto the jth row of P. This indicates that the variables (off diagonal terms).
original data X are being projected on the columns of P. Thus, Thus, a matrix P that diagonalizes CY has to be find.
 Assuming that {p1 , p2 , . . . , pm } are orthogonal, it is B. Prony analysis
possible to exploit linear algebra properties to find a solution Prony analysis was developed by Gaspard Riche, Baron de
for the problem. In particular: Prony in 1795 to explain the expansion phenomena of some
gases [17]. It has been shown to be a viable technique to
1 1 1 model a linear sum of damped complex exponential of signal
CY = YYT = (PX)(PX)T = (PX)(XT PT ) =
n−1 n−1 n−1 uniformly sampled. The Prony analysis is not only a signal
(10)
1 1
= P(XXT )PT = PSPT = PCX PT analysis technique but also a system identification method
n−1 n−1
widely used [18].
where The Prony analysis tries to fit a linear combination of
complex damped sinusoids to a signal as in (15).
S = XXT (11)
L
is a m × m symmetric matrix proportional to CX .
X
y(t) = Ai eσi t cos(2πfi t + φi ) (15)
From linear algebra i=1

where
S = EΛE−1 = EΛET (12) • Ai is the amplitude of component i;
• σ i is the damping coefficient of component i;
where E is a m × m orthonormal matrix, which leads to • fi is the frequency of component i;
E-1 =ET , whose columns are the eigenvectors of S, while Λ is a • φi is the phase of component i;
m×m diagonal matrix that has the eigenvalues of S as diagonal • L is the number of components.
elements. If we now choose as rows of P the eigenvectors of
According to Euler’s theorem, the cosine function can be
S, we obtain that P=ET . Therefore:
written as a sum of exponential so that
1 1
CY = PSPT = ET (EΛET )E (13) ej2πfi t+ ejφi e−j2πfi t e−jφi
n−1 n−1 cos(2πfi t) = + (16)
2 2
Since E is a orthonormal matrix, ET E=I, and CY becomes: Putting (16) in equation (15) and setting t=kTs , where Ts is
the sampling period, the samples of y(t) can be rewritten as
1
CY = Λ (14) L
n−1 X
y[k] = Ci µki (17)
It is worth noting that matrix Λ contains the eigenvalues of i=1
S, since they are proportional to the the eigenvalues of CX . where
This leads to the goal of this procedure: if we carry out
the eigenanalysis of CX , we obtain the variance of the newly Ai jφi
Ci = e ; (18a)
transformed variables CY . The variances gives information 2
about the relative importance of each principal component.
The largest variance corresponds to the first principal compo- µi = e(σi +j2πfi )Ts (18b)
nent, the second largest to the second principal component, and
with i=1,2,. . . ,L.
so on. Once we have obtained the eigenvalues and eigenvectors
Prony analysis consists of three steps:
of S=XXT it is possible to sort the eigenvalues in descending
order and place them on the diagonal of Λ. After that, we can 1) Solve the linear prediction model, that is made by
construct the matrix E by placing the associated eigenvectors the observed set of data.
Let us write (17) as a linear prediction model (LPM):
in the same order to form the columns of E.
In this way, the goal of obtaining a matrix CY of the
transformed data that is diagonal is achieved. Principal com- y[k] = α1 y[k − 1] + α2 y[k − 2] + · · · + αL y[k − L] (19)
ponents directions (the rows of P) are the eigenvectors of S,
while rows are ordered according to the ”importance” of each where y[k] is computed for k=L,L+1,L+2,. . . ,N-1.
principal component. By inverting the matrix representation, the linear
coefficients αL can be derived from (19),
The process described can be summarized as follows:
1) Data matrix X; 
y[L]
 
y[L − 1] y[L − 2] ... y[0]
 
α1
 y[L + 1]   y[L] y[L − 1] ... y[1]   α2 
2) S=XXT ;  y[L + 2]   y[L + 1] y[L] ... y[2]   α3 
  
eigen-decomposition of S as S=EΛE-1 =EΛET ; =
  
3) 
.
.
.
.
.
. .. .
.
 . 
 
  .. 
  
. . . . .
4) selection of a proper number of PCs, according to the
  
y[N − 1] y[N − 2] y[N − 3] ... y[N − L − 1] αL
magnitude of the eigenvalues λ (20)
5) set P=ET ;
6) Y=PX. or, in a more compact form,
 d = Dα (21)
where D is a (N-L)×L matrix. If N>2L, vector α is
estimated by solving the over-determined least square
problem (21). Vector α can be computed using a pseudo-
inverse:
α = (DT D)−1 DT d (22)
2) Find the roots of the characteristic polynomial
formed from the linear prediction coefficients.

µL −α1 µL−1 −· · ·−αL−1 µ = (µ−µ1 )(µ−µ2 ) . . . (µ−µL )

(23) Figure 1: Flow-chart of the proposed approach
Since α is known, it is possible to find the roots µi
of (23).
3) Solve the original set of linear equations to get the 2) Time window selection: in order to simulate real-time
estimates of the exponential amplitude and sinusoidal operation, the approach is applied on a moving time
phase. window. The size of the window has to be selected
based on the frequencies of interest. For example, if
  1 1 ... 1
 
y[0] C1 the expected lowest interarea frequency is 0.08 Hz, a

 y[1]   µ1 µ2 ... µL   C2  25 seconds time window should be used.
 y[2]   µ21 µ22 . . . µ2L
 
=   C3 
 (24) 3) Outliers identification and removal: an outlier is a

..   . .. ..  
 . 

 ..

.  ..
 
. . .  .. sampled value very different in relation to the set of
y[N − 1] µN−1
1 µ2N−1 ... µN−1
L
CL samples in its neighborhood. The outliers have undesira-
ble effects on the filtering, leading to artificial transient
or, in a more compact form, in the filtered signals and should be removed. In the
proposed method, a traditional approach has been used.
Y = µC (25) A sample yn is consider outlier if:
From (25) it is possible to obtain the linear prediction
coefficients Ci . Since now C and µ are known, amplitu- |M Mn | − ασ̄ < |yn | < |M Mn | + ασ̄
de, frequency and damping coefficients can be computed
by equations (18). where MMn is the signal moving average at the nth
As compared to other signal analysis techniques, such as sample, σ̄ is the computed standard deviation, yn is
Fourier Analysis, Prony analysis has the advantage of estima- the current sample and α is a parameter that, according
ting damping coefficients apart from frequency and amplitude. to [16], can be between 2 and 5 (a value of 3.5 has been
Moreover, according to [19], it best fits a reduced-order model selected). The outliers are then removed and replaced
to a high-order system. using a linear interpolation.
A key issue is the order of the system, that is the value 4) Signal preprocessing: input data are detrended and
of L in equation (15). In practical applications, this value is filtered to eliminate noise and components associated
not easy to be determined; for this reason, the model order is with the action of slow dynamics controllers [4]. The
one of the parameters that the user can define. Even if power filtering is performed by a Finite Impulse Response
systems are high-order systems, only a small number of modes (FIR) filter [20]. The order of the filter has been set to
are observable from a set of measurements; for this reason, one third of the number of input data for each window.
according to [3], a choice between 20 and 30 has to be done. The cut-off frequencies are 0.08 Hz and 1 Hz, slightly
different from the interarea range proposed in [2], but
III. P ROPOSED APPROACH FOR ELECTROMECHANICAL coherent with available information on the phenomena.
OSCILLATION IDENTIFICATION
5) Alarm setting: as shown in Figure 1, the complete
In this section, details of the proposed approach is presen- procedure is applied only if a significant perturbation
ted. The electromechanical oscillation identification algorithm, is identified. In order to do that, the variance resulting
schematically represented in Figure 1, has been developed from the eigenanalysis of the covariance matrix CX is
according to the following steps: compared with a threshold ξ: if the variance σ is greater
1) Input data: frequencies measured from the Phasor than the threshold ξ, the complete identification method
Measurements Units (PMUs) are used as the only input is carried out. The threshold has to be set up based on
data. PMUs are devices used to measure the magnitude the number of PMUs and the size of the time window
and the phase angle of an electrical phasor quantity. considered.
 Figure 2: Two-area system [21]

Table I: Two-area system: electromechanical modes

Figure 3: Two-area system: interarea modes
Re Im Magn. Angle Freq. Period Damping
1/s rad/s 1/s deg Hz s 1/s
M. 21 -1,661 9,379 9,525 100,041 1,493 0,670 1,661 50.02
f1
M. 22 -1,661 -9,379 9,525 -100,041 1,493 0,670 1,661 f2
f3
50
M. 23 -0,913 7,820 7,873 96,659 1,245 0,804 0,913 f4
f5
f6

M. 24 -0,913 -7,820 7,873 -96,659 1,245 0,804 0,913 49.98

f7
f8
f9
M. 25 -0,353 4,306 4,321 94,689 0,685 1,459 0,353 f10
f11

M. 26 -0,353 -4,306 4,321 -94,689 0,685 1,459 0,353 49.96

f [Hz]
49.94

49.92

6) Parameter identification: in case a significant perturba- 49.9

tion is identified, the complete identification procedure 49.88

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

is carried out. PCA and Prony analysis are applied on the time [s]

most updated time window give as output magnitude A,

damping ζ and frequency f of electromechanical modes.
7) System areas behavior: information of the buses (or
areas) behavior are also available from PCs loadings.
IV. R ESULTS
A. Two-area test system
The proposed approach has been tested on a Two-area
test system based on the Kundur 11-bus system from [21]
(Figure 2). The test system is formed by two areas connected
by a weak tie (bus 8). For each area, two round rotor units are
present, each with a rating power of 900 MVA and a rating
voltage of 20 kV.
The modal analysis, where only electromechanical modes
were considered, is summarized in Table I.
Considering the interarea mode only (M. 25 and M. 26),
modes shape are shown in Figure 3, where it is possible to see
that generators G1 and G2 of area 1 swing against generators
G3 and G4 of area 2.
Figure 4: Two-area system: frequencies acquired from PMUs
first component and 21% for the second component) we can
state that the original set of signals can be well reconstructed
by the first two components only, since they accounts for 99%
of the information. The loadings of those two components,
sorted by bus number from left-end side to the right-end side,
are represented in Figure 6 and Figure 7.
The two main components can be interpreted as follows:
1) First component: considering the sign of the loadings
related to component one, it is possible to notice that they are
all positive with values very similar to each other (Figure 6).
This means that there is a direct connection between all the
frequencies involved and all of them participate with the same
strength to the relationship.
0.2

In order to verify the proposed PCA+Prony approach for 0.15

electromechanical oscillation identification, we studied the PC1

0.1 PC2

Two-Area test system considering a perturbation of +10% in

active power at bus 9. Even if in real applications PMUs 0.05
f [Hz]

are install in a few nodes, for this test system we suppose 0

to have frequency measurements by PMUs in all 11 buses -0.05

(Figure 4). Moreover, PCA is applied on the entire interval, -0.1

i.e. considering a single time window, in an off-line approach,

-0.15

to study its properties. 0 5 10 15

time [s]
20 25 30 35

Scores of the first and the second principal components can

be seen in Figure 5. Looking at the percentage of the total Figure 5: Two-area system: scores of the first and second
variance explained by each principal component (78% for the principal components
 0.35
Table II: Two-area system: interarea simulation results
0.3

Modal Analysis PCA+Prony

0.25

A 4.321 4.158
0.2
ζ 0.353 0.310
0.15 f 0.685 0.660
0.1

0.05

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Analyzing the sign of the loadings, it can be seen that buses
in area 1 (1-2-5-6-7) have an opposite behavior with respect
Figure 6: Two-area system: loadings of the first principal to buses in area 2 (3-4-9-10-11). The loading related to bus
components 8 is very small: it means that bus 8 has low participation in
the second principal component. Comparing loadings result
0.4
in Figure 7 with modes in Figure 3 shows that the proposed
0.3

0.2
approach gives information on how generators behave as well.
0.1
Applying Prony analysis on the second component magni-
0 tude A, damping ζ and frequency f can be found. Table II
-0.1
compares Prony analysis results and values computed by the
-0.2
modal analysis, i.e., the interarea modes M. 25 and M.26 of
-0.3

-0.4
Table I. It can be seen that the proposed method well estimates
the interarea oscillation.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Figure 7: Two-area system: loadings of the second principal B. ENTSO-E system: real event simulation
components In this section, the proposed method is applied to a real
event which resulted in interarea oscillations on the European
Let us now consider the frequency of the Center of Inertia Network of Transmission System Operators (ENTSO-E)1 .
(COI), a rotational analogy to the center of mass of an object, ENTSO-E represents 43 electricity TSOs from 36 countries
defined, according to [22], as across Europe extending beyond the EU borders.
Pn The geographical area covered by ENTSO-E’s members is
k=1 Hk SbGk fGk divided into five synchronous areas:
fCOIj (t) = P n (26)
i=1 Hk SbGk • Continental Europe
where, for each generator, Hk is the inertia, SbGk is the • Nordic Europe
nominal power and fGk is the electrical frequency. • United Kingdom
Figure 8 shows the shapes of both the first component and • Ireland
the frequency of COI: the two trends results very similar. The • Baltic Region
non perfect matching can be explained by the fact that the first Synchronous areas are groups of countries that are connec-
PC accounts only for the 78% of the total variance. ted via their respective power systems. The system frequency
2) Second component: The shape of the second component is 50 Hz and it is synchronous within each area; a disturbance
can be fitted by a damped sinusoid described by the formula: at one single point in the area will be registered across the
entire zone. Individual synchronous areas are interconnected
y(t) = Ae−λt cos(ωt + φ) through direct current inter-connectors.
ENTSO-E report [23] provides information about PMUs
It is worth noting that this behavior can be related to an
measurement locations depicted in Figure 9.
oscillation that shows up in the grid after the load variation.
In this real case:
• the PMUs are located only in few busses of the network;
0.2 50.02
• a moving window is applied to simulate real time

0.15
operation;
50
PC1
COI • the methodology to start the PCA analysis based on the
0.1
49.98
variance is applied and tested.
0.05

Figure 10 shows the frequencies measured at 9 PMUs

f [Hz]

f [Hz]

49.96

0
during the considered perturbation. A significant oscillation at
49.94
-0.05 bus in Portugal (PT) can be clearly seen, which is in agreement
-0.1
49.92 to the fact that the perturbation was in the Iberian peninsula.
-0.15
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
49.9 1 The PCA algorithm was tested on some real recordings thanks to the
time [s]

availability of WAMS task force of the subgroup SP&D within ENTSO-

E RGCE, convened by Hans Abildgaard (Energinet.dk), Giorgio Giannuzzi
Figure 8: PC1 and frequency of COI (Terna) and Walter Sattinger (Swissgrid).
 10-4
7

Latent PC1
Threshold
5

variance
3

0
0 100 200 300 400 500
t [s]

Figure 9: European interarea modes Figure 12: Real event: PC variance and alarm setting

50.1

50.06

TKThessalonikiHz
50.08 TKTemelliHz
TKHamitabatHz
TKAtaturkHz
50.06
50.04 PTRecareiHz
ITLainoHz
ITBrindisiHz
GRStefanosHz
50.04 CHBassecourtHz
50.02

50.02
f [Hz]

f [Hz]
50
50

49.98

TKThessalonikiHz 49.98
TKTemelliHz
49.96 TKHamitabatHz
TKAtaturkHz
PTRecareiHz
ITLainoHz 49.96
49.94
ITBrindisiHz
GRStefanosHz
CHBassecourtHz
49.92
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
t [s] 49.94
235 240 245 250
t [s]

Figure 10: Real event: frequencies acquired by PMUs

Figure 13: Real event: measured frequencies for the window
235-250 s
Considering for a while the entire time span in which the
significant perturbation persists (200-450s), results of applying
PCA highlight that the first component (PC1) counts for 55% f of electromechanical modes are computed.
while the second component (PC2) for the 30% of the total The results of the procedure are shown with reference to a
variance. The two main components seem to be enough to single moving window (235-250s) to highlight the features of
express most of the information of the original data set. Shapes the proposed methodology. Figure 13 shows frequency data
of the components are shown in Figure 11. for a 15 s window during the event.
According to section III, the variance σ of the principal Shapes of the first (PC1) and second (PC2) components are
component is shown in Figure 12; the alarm threshold has shown in Figure 14 while loadings are reported in Figure 15.
been set to ξ=1.31 10-4 . Accordingly, perturbation is identified Figure 14 reports two sinusoids at 0.15 Hz, a value similar to
after 200 s. Once the alarm goes off, the complete PCA+Prony the input frequency signal. Figure 15 shows that the PMU
analysis method is carried out on a moving window of 15 s with the highest loading is in Portugal (PT), which is the
updated every second. Magnitude A, damping ζ and frequency node geographically closest to the perturbed area. It can be
noticed that buses locates in Turkey (TK) and Greece (GR
have the same sign of the Iberian buses but smaller amplitude.
0.15
Moreover, PC2 loadings highlights that buses in Turkey (TK)
PC1
0.1

0.05
and Greece (GR) have opposite sign with respect to all the
others.
f [Hz]

-0.05

-0.1 PC1 and PC2 represent hence two different patterns of

-0.15
150 200 250 300
t [s]
350 400 450 500
oscillation. The first one has its center in the Iberian peninsula;
0.15
PC2
the second one in the Hellenic peninsula.
0.1

0.05
Analyzing the biplot graph reported in Figure 16, it is
f [Hz]

0
possible to cluster buses in three different groups:
-0.05

-0.1
150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
• The Bus in Iberian area with highest PC1 (area α);
t [s]

• Buses in Turkish-Hellenic area with highest PC2 (area

Figure 11: Real event: PC1 and PC2 calculated during the time β);
interval 200-450 s • Buses in European area with low PC1 and PC2 (area γ).
 0.1 50.1
PC1
PC2 50.05

f [Hz]
0.08
50

49.95
0.06
49.9
150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
t [s]
0.04

Frequency
0.6
0.02

f [Hz]
0.4

0 0.2

0
150 200 250 300 350 400 450
-0.02
t [s]

0.8 Damping
-0.04
0.6

1/s
0.4
-0.06
0.2

0
-0.08
235 240 245 250 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
t [s]

Figure 14: Real event: PC1 and PC2 Figure 17: Real event: PCA+Prony analysis results for PC1

50.1
0.7
PC1 50.05
0.6

f [Hz]
50
0.5

0.4 49.95

0.3 49.9
150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
0.2 t [s]

0.1
Frequency
0.8
0
0.6

f [Hz]
-0.1
0.4
-0.2
CHBassecourtHz GRStefanosHz ITBrindisiHz ITLainoHz PTRecareiHz TKAtaturkHz TKHamitabatHz TKTemelliHz TKThessalonikiHz 0.2

0
150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
t [s]
0.5
PC2 0.6 Damping
0.4
0.4
0.3 1/s
0.2
0.2
0
0.1 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
t [s]
0

-0.1

-0.2
CHBassecourtHz GRStefanosHz ITBrindisiHz ITLainoHz PTRecareiHz TKAtaturkHz TKHamitabatHz TKTemelliHz TKThessalonikiHz
Figure 18: Real event: PCA+Prony analysisresults for PC2

Figure 15: Real event: PC1 and PC2 loadings

V. C ONCLUSIONS
In this paper, a method for the identification of electrome-
Moreover, considering vectors in Figure 16, phase- chanical oscillations is proposed. PCA, a statistical method
difference between the identified areas can be computed by that allows to reduce system order, has been applied to PMUs
Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). measurements together with Prony analysis, a tool which
Results of the moving window approach, over the entire is able to estimate amplitude, frequency and damping of
event, are reported in Figures 17 and 18 for PC1 and PC2 oscillatory signals. The identification process has been tested
respectively. Figure 17 reports the estimated frequency for PC1 on a two-area system with the assumption of having PMUs
and its damping; Figure 18 depicts the same variables for PC2. measurements for all the busses and for the entire perturbed
A dominat frequency of about 0.2 Hz is identified during the data set. Moreover, the proposed approach has been tested on
entire event with a damping that correctly follows the original a real event occured on the ENSTOE-E system. A description
input data trend. PCA Loadings, which are not reported here, of the moving window online approach as well as how to set
confirm the same conclusion highlighted in Figure 15. up the alarm for significant perturbation events identification is
described. Amplitude, frequency and damping of the expected
dominant mode are computed as well as the identification of
system areas behaviour from the PCs loadings.
0.6

0.4
TKAtaturkHz
TKTemelliHz
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TKHamitabatHz

0.2
TKThessalonikiHz
GRStefanosHz
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