Different Methods for Event Detection Techniques in

Power Systems

Abstract:

Introduction:
There is a strong relation between advancement of a civilization and the amount of
energy it controls. With an increase in energy demand there comes an inherent need to control and
properly distribute this energy through power grids. The present electrical power system showcases a
more complicated and ambiguous behaviour due to the increased use of renewable energy sources.
To improve power system operators system state awareness, it is critical to build effective and
reliable event identification and location algorithms. These algorithms are aimed at increasing
reliability of very complex and large power grids. To judge the grid operating conditions there is an
inherent need to measure the state variables of the system. These state variables are measured by
using a Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) in the present days. Due to its ability to collect time
synchronized data with a high sampling rate, it provides a deeper insight into the operations of the
power system.
There are various disturbances arise in electrical power networks. Disturbance is the variation of any
of the electrical quantities monitored from its normal operating range. The magnitudes of these
disturbances may however be a deciding factor for them to be critical or not. Disturbances that may
cause power network disruption or loss have been categorized as Events. These occurrences must be
handled quickly, as they have the potential to cause significant financial losses to power generation
companies. Large network disruptions and rapid fluctuations in renewable energy generating output
are also referred to as events. The large disturbances in network not only consists of transmission line
short circuits; protective relay actions that operate to clear occurrences such as line trip and reclosing
actions; or a massive and sudden interruption of generator or load. Disturbances in a grid can be of
varying magnitudes from small disturbances to large disturbances. Some disturbances can also be
caused due to normal operation of the grid. Synchrophasor data and wide area monitoring enables
grid operators to visualize the whole electric power system spread through an entire interconnection,
interpret grid conditions online, analyse and take action to solve emerging problems [1]. Wide area
monitoring system provides a better visibility, and the employing the advanced detection techniques
to alarm the system operators regarding the possible system instability, can prevent the occurrence of
blackouts.
Different Techniques for Event Detection:
Presently, several technologies have been developed for events detection in power systems.
There are various Event Detection Techniques in Power Systems discussed [2]. A brief presentation
of the current technologies to detect events in power systems including categories of events, the type
input signals used for event detection and classification of the methods explored in the literature.
Event Detection for Indian Power System using Signal Processing Methods are discussed [3]. The
analysis carried out in this paper are based on PMU data inferences derived using various signal
processing methods like Fast Fourier Transform, Yule-Walker Spectral Analysis, Matrix Pencil and
Min-Max.
Here the roadmap is given how to automatically detect these events of concern using signal
processing techniques. The first signal processing technique used is based on the fast fourier
transform to make time domain signal to frequency domain, due to the fact that frequency is high
when an event occurs. Second method Yule walker calculates the power spectral density of the
signal. Third method is based on minimum and maximum values noted for each window. Fourth
method: Matrix Pencil uses a sum of damped sinusoidal signals to fit to the given sampled PMU
data. Then damping and frequency of signal is extracted from each component sinusoids. In all the
methods, the next step is to compare the noted quantities with the 3 standard deviation from mean of
each window. If the quantity crosses this threshold, it is noted as event.
The difference in phase angle between two PMUs (relative phase angle difference, RPAD) is used as
a sensing variable to detect power system events. While another signal used for detection of events is
the frequency which is directly measured by each PMU. Each of the signal data is analysed for a
window size of 10 seconds i.e. for every 250 samples. On every sliding window, the signal
processing methods have been applied and the potential events that have been captured by the
algorithms have been stored. Further these data points were classified as events whenever these data
points cross the threshold of 3 standard deviations from the mean.
Reference [4] proposes an event detection and location in Electric Power Systems using Constrained
Optimization. This paper presents two new methods for electric power grid state and parameter
estimation when a limited amount of grid information is available.
Here described a new algorithm for detecting and locating anomalous events such as device failures
or line outages in large electric power systems given multiple time measurements from a limited
number of remote sites. Line outages are detected and located using an optimization based approach,
where a time-differencing objective function is being minimized to identify any grid changes. A
separate problem of this work is estimating state and parameter values in an electric power system
given single time measurement information from a limited number of remote sites. To estimate state
and parameter values and optimization approach is used to minimize an objective function based
upon grid operating principles.
For solving a nonlinear constrained optimization (NLCO) problem there should be provided a set of
desired grid information. This method attempts to estimate an approximate state (voltages and
powers) of the grid from a set of measurements at a relatively small number of sites. Constrained to
the power balance manifold, this method minimizes an objective function based on generic grid
behaviour as well as any available information about the particular state of the grid to estimate a
selected set of grid states and parameters. In contrast to NLCO an optimal power flow (OPF)
approach has sufficiently more known data that includes all the load real and reactive powers as well
as measured data throughout the grid.

Fig. NLCO Process for 118-bus test system.

LSTM-based quick Event detection in Power Systems is proposed in [5]. In this paper, a data-
driven online approach is established to detect events in power systems in real time.
There are three main advantages of the proposed LSTM based event detection approach: First, it is
purely data-driven and does not require any prior knowledge of the power system. Thus, it is a
universal approach and can be deployed in various systems with complicated dynamics. Second, the
event detection method relies on classical approaches in QCD, thus is theoretically grounded and can
achieve (near-) optimal trade-off between the probability of false alarm and detection delay. Third,
the effectiveness of the proposed approach is validated on a real-world dataset. It outperforms the
baseline algorithms, yielding significantly shorter detection delay when the probability of false alarm
is reasonably low.

Event detection method by using Auto-encoders and the Fourier transform in power system is
described in [6]. In this paper, several algorithms for event or anomaly detection in electrical power
systems are investigated and compared. The proposed algorithms utilize unsupervised training of
auto-encoders and Fourier transform-based signal reconstruction. Reference [7] represents Power
system event detection by using the Energy detector. In this paper, energy detector is present a
waveform event detection system that adaptively monitors a signal’s energy and picks out high-
frequency events that deviate from the nominal state, after that it evaluate the performance of this
detector against waveform data that have been corrupted by sensor irregularities. A real-Time event
detection and Feature Extraction using PMU Measurement data is discussed [8]. The primary
contribution of this paper is to develop a real-time analysis of time-varying data and adopt a
visualization technique in order to detect abnormal events and improve the gird operator’s situational
 awareness. In particular, it can perform tasks like fault detection, fault type recognition and location
identification without any model information.
References:
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