IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - September/October 2015 - 10

guest editorial

Sarma Nuthalapati and Arun G. Phadke

managing the grid
using synchrophasor technology

IT ALL STARTED WITH THE WoRk
on computer relaying technology at American Electric Power (AEP), which led to
the development of phasor measurement
units (PMUs) beginning in the mid 1970s.
The seminal phasor measurement paper,
published in 1983, was "A New Measurement Technique for Tracking Voltage Phasors, Local System Frequency,
and Rate of Change of Frequency" by
Phadke, Thorp, and Adamiak. The first
prototype PMU was built at Virginia
Tech in the early 1980s, and these prototypes were deployed on an experimental basis in the substations of utilities
that funded these initial efforts. There
were many lessons learned from these
early installations.
In the early 1990s, commercialtype PMUs were developed, and much
effort was put into in developing IEEE
standards for PMUs and wide-area
monitoring systems (WAMS). Today,
funding is provided by government
agencies to install PMUs and understand the benefits of the synchrophasor technology in managing the grid
through demonstration projects. The
North American Electric Reliability
Corporation's report, "Real-Time Application of Synchrophasors for Improving Reliability," published in october 2010 (http://www.nerc.com/docs/
oc/rapirtf/RAPIR%20final%20101710.
pdf), clearly indicates that the lack of
wide-area visibility prevented early
identification of the 14 August 2003
U.S. Northeast blackout. The U.S.-
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2015.2435596
Date of publication: 18 August 2015

ieee power & energy magazine

Canada report on the investigation
into the blackout hypothesized that if a
phasor system had been in operation at
that time, the blackout preconditions-
in particular, the growing voltage problems in ohio-could have been identified and understood earlier. The key
benefits of PMU technology include
✔ wide-area visualization
✔ oscillation detection
✔ generator model and parameter
validation
✔ island detection
✔ voltage instability monitoring
✔ identification of potential malfunction of devices in the grid
✔ event analysis.
There are already some large-scale
implementations of synchrophasor technology in managing the grid across the
world (China has 2400, India has 1800,
and North America has 2000 PMUs).
Efforts are in place to take this technology into control center operations
and develop good operational procedures to better manage the grid with
wide-area visualization tools using
PMU data.
The IEEE Power & Energy Magazine's Editorial Board agreed that it
was appropriate and timely to dedicate
this issue of the magazine to synchrophasor technology for managing the
grid. We have collected experiences
from across the world in implementing
this technology. The following topics
are presented:
✔ the deployment of synchrophasor technology in the western
region of the United States

✔ the deployment of synchropha-

sor technology in the eastern region of the United States
✔ the deployment of synchrophasor
technology in the Electric Reliability
Council of Texas (ERCoT) region
of the United States
✔ the use of wide-area monitoring in the continental European
power system
✔ WAMS initiatives and experiences in India
✔ recent developments and applications of PMU/WAMS in China.
In addition to these topics, we also
include an article detailing the efforts
of the U.S. Department of Energy
(DoE) in promoting synchrophasor
technology in the United States by
funding several implementation projects. The "In My View" column by
Arun Phadke recalls his PMU memories-how all this started way back in
the 1970s, how it has progressed thus
far-and offers an appropriate closing
piece to this issue.
The first article, "Synchrophasor
Technology and the DoE" by overholt,
ortiz, and Silverstein, provides a summary of the support given by the U.S.
DoE for various projects that deployed
synchrophasor technology in different
utilities under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. These projects
committed several hundred million
dollars in direct federal and private
funds to PMU technology investments.
This article also covers efforts by the
North American SynchroPhasor Initiative, the National Science Foundation,
september/october 2015

http://www.nerc.com/docs/

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - September/October 2015