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Performance of a Synchronized Phasor Measurements System in the Brazilian Power System

I. C. Decker, D. Dotta, M. N. Agostini, S. L. Zimath, and A. S. e Silva.
separation, dynamic/transient phasor movements indicating dynamic/transient swings among different areas and modal inter area oscillation frequencies and their modal damping [3]. The SPMS, sometimes referred to more generically as a Wide Area Measurement System (WAMS), are basically composed by PMUs (Phasor Measurements Units) connected to a Phasor Data Concentrator (PDC) and application methodologies for monitoring and control of power system real time operation [2]. The first developments in SPMS started in 1989 with the WAMS project in subsystems of the WECC (Western Electricity Coordinating Council) of U.S.A. [4]. This project involved the use of GPSsynchronized measurements over a large area of that power network [5]. In the last few years, several others countries started to install SPMS in their electrical systems. Besides the U.S.A., the following countries are reported to have installed and integrated phasor measurement units for research or are developing prototypes: Brazil [4], Scandinavia [9], Korea [10], Taiwan [11], China [12], Japan [13], and France, Italy, Switzerland, Croatia, Greece, Mexico, South Africa [5]. In the beginning of 2003, following the experience gained in the western power system, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) launched the Eastern Interconnection Phasor Project (EIPP), which is being executed by a work group comprising transmission owing utilities, hardware and software vendors, power system operators, reliability councils and government. The EIPP seeks to improve power system reliability through wide area measurement, monitoring and control [6]. To reach this goal six task teams were created by EIPP. As the SPMS technology is so incipient, the main work developed for the task team was the identification, description and specification of the functional requirements for components of software and hardware for SPMS. These components include the equipments (PMUs, PDC, network, etc) and the monitoring, protection and control applications. Specifically, the Performance Requirements Task Team (PRTT) has been working in a report including guidelines/requirements for a PMU Testing Guide. The main objective of PMU Testing Guide is to define a testing procedure to assess the PMUs that will be installed in the Eastern Interconnection. The PMU assessment is important as shown in [7]. That work shows that PMUs of different manufacturers can be only compared under nominal frequency operations conditions. In off-nominal frequency operation every tested PMU unit yielded a different

Abstract-- This paper describes recent results of the MedFasee

project aiming at the development and performance testing of a Synchronized Phasor Measurement System (SPMS) prototype and its applications for monitoring of power system operation. The prototype consists of a Phasor Data Concentrator (PDC) and three Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) installed in cities in Southern Brazil. Results from monitoring system frequency and voltage in normal and abnormal conditions are shown. These results indicate that is possible to obtain important information on power system dynamics using SPMS connected at low-voltage and Internet. Index TermsPhasor Measurements, PMU, power system monitoring, wide-area monitoring, SPMS, WAMS.

I. INTRODUCTION

N the last years, economic considerations associated to the electricity market and environment restrictions have led grid operators to postpone or reduce investments. This scenario combined with the continuous load increase leads the power system and its components to operate closer to their limits. Furthermore, reliable electricity supply is now essential for society, and blackouts are becoming more costly [1]. To operate the power system closer to limits and still to keep a high reliability is a challenging task and requires tools that allow the prompt detection of instabilities. SCADA data provide a comprehensive record of power system conditions but at a relatively slow rate [2]. New tools such as Synchronized Phasor Measurement Systems (SPMS), which use advances in communications, computers and Global Positioning System (GPS) technologies, are needed for monitoring and control to improve the security of large power systems [3]. The SPMS can capture the faster power system variations enabling operators to monitor and often control critical power system operating indices, which are essential for secure operation of a large power system, including static phase-angle limits (power system stress), critical intermediate voltage support when operating at large phase-angle

Work partially supported by contract FNDCT CT-Energ/Finep 01.02.0039.00 and Reason Technology S.A. I. C. Decker, D. Dotta, M. N. Agostini , and A. S. e Silva are with Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianpolis, SC 88.040-900 Brazil (e-mail: [email protected],[email protected],[email protected],agui [email protected]). S. L. Zimath is with Reason Technology S. A., Florianpolis, SC 88.025500 Brazil (e-mail: [email protected]).

1-4244-0493-2/06/$20.00 2006 IEEE.

phase and magnitude for the common measured voltage signal. These measurement errors must be taken into account to allow the connection between PMUs of different manufactures. This paper describes new results of a research project on SPMS in Brazil, the MedFasee project. The main goal of this paper is to show the performance of a SPMS prototype comprising three PMUs and one PDC, under normal and abnormal power system conditions. The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, the MedFasee project is presented and the main software and hardware components of the SPMS prototype are described. In Section 3, the performance of the PMU prototype is presented. In Section 4, the performance of the SPMS prototype in monitoring the power system under normal and abnormal conditions is presented. Finally, in Section 5 and 6, the future developments and main conclusions are, respectively, presented. II. MEDFASEE PROJECT The MedFasee project was started in 2003 aiming at the development of a phasor measurement system prototype and applications for power systems monitoring and control. The prototype was installed in the end of 2004 and since then the frequency and disturbances, in the Southern Brazil power system, have been monitored. A. SPMS Prototype The SPMS prototype is composed by one PDC and three PMUs. The three PMUs were installed in laboratories of three universities in Southern Brazil: Federal Center of Technological Education of Parana (CEFET-PR) in Curitiba, Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) in Florianpolis and Catholic University (PUCRS) in Porto Alegre. The PMUs measure the instantaneous three-phase distribution voltage and frequency. Each PMU is connected to the Internet through an ethernet network interface and sends the phasors to the PDC located in the Electrical Systems Planning Research Laboratory (LabPlan) at UFSC. In Figure 1 the geographical location of the PDC and PMUs in Brazil is shown. The main hardware components and the prototype functionalities are described as follows: 1) PMU The PMUs were entirely designed and built as part of the MedFasee project. To implement the main PMU functions, phasor calculation and transmission to the PDC, the voltage and current samples, acquired synchronously with the GPS reference, are processed by Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT), and formatted in data frames, using the IEEE Std. 1344-1995 format [15]. Each PMU has a GPS receiver to synchronize the samples, so that the phasor angles measured by all PMUs in the power system are in the same time reference. The PMUs have eight analogue channels (four for voltage and four for current), and 16 digital channels. The PMU generated data are continuously sent to the PDC, at a rate of 60Hz, using an Ethernet link (UDP/IP protocol). This

rate and an angle precision of 0.1 electric degrees are suited for the analysis of long term dynamic phenomena [15].

Fig. 1. PMUs and PDC geographical location.

2) PDC The PDC receives and correlates time-tagged phasor data sent by all the PMUs. It has the following main functions: a) Acquisition of the phasors, continuously sent by the PMUs and handling of transmission errors; b) Storage of phasors in a central database; c) Support for real time system monitoring; d) Support for offline study applications, making available old phasors. These functions are designed and implemented in computing routines using the Object Oriented Modeling paradigm and C++ programming language. As the PDC needs to support real time applications it is necessary to rank the routines priorities. For example, the task of phasors acquisition has a higher priority than a request from the offline study application. To solve this problem a real time environment needed to be implemented. The PDC was built using the GNU/Linux operating system that does not have native real time support. The real time support is enabled in GNU/Linux applying a patch to the GNU/Linux kernel. There are two main packages for this finality: RT-Linux and RTAI. The latter was chosen since it presented a better support for object-oriented programming tasks. 3) Network The PMUs and PDC are connected by ethernet using the Internet network. The Internet connection was chosen due to its availability and the facilities provided to manage the PMUs remotely. The phasors are sent by the PMUs using the UDP/IP protocol and the remote administration is performed by the SSH (Security Shell) application. Figure 2 shows the phasors loss (in percentage) in a typical workday (Tuesday). The worse period is about midday when up to 2% of the data sent did not arrive at the PDC. The same behavior was found in all weekdays. In holidays and weekends the data loss is almost 0%. The measured transmission delay in the Internet is about 130 ms. In the local 100 Mbps Ethernet network (LabPlan network) this delay falls to 30 ms. These results support the choice of the Internet for the MedFasee project purposes.

2) Data Management: The phasors sent by the PMUs are correlated in a uniform data stream. 3) Data Services: This layer includes the set of services required for supplying data for the different applications. 4) Applications: This is the layer where the monitoring, control and protection applications are executed. In the Figure 3, the overview of the SPMS architecture is presented.

Fig. 2. Network performance (data lost in percentage).

4) Database The database is an independent process in the PDC and it is accessed by the storage routines through specific database functions [4]. The external applications are connected directly to the database. The database structure was designed to facilitate the data access and stores up to seven days of continuous data of all PMUs in the power system. The database is circular; new data replaces the oldest data. The database was implemented using the MySQL software for GNU/Linux. The MySQL database fulfills the requirements of the SPMS prototype. However, further studies and developments on Real Time Databases are necessary to improve the PDC capacity. B. Support for Monitoring Applications Facilities for monitoring applications using the PDC phasors were developed and implemented. These facilities are divided in two modules [14]: 1) Real Time Module This module supports the monitoring of real time data provided by the PDC. The application shows the real-time phasors arriving in the PDC. 2) On-Line Module This module allows the monitoring of the phasors kept in the PDC database. The main screen allows access to the database and graphics plotting. This screen enables the user to choose which phasors he wants to observe. One of the phasors can be chosen as the system reference. The user can still choose which measurements to observe: voltage magnitude, voltage angle or frequency. Due to the characteristics of this module it was developed in Matlab. This environment facilitates the development of graphical applications and the mathematical treatment. C. SPMS Architecture The architecture of the SPMS system is divided in four main layers: 1) Data acquisition: The PMUs are located in strategic points to measure voltage and current. The phasors are calculated and sent to the PDC.

Fig. 3. SPMS Architecture of the MedFasee Project.

III. PMU PROTOTYPE PERFORMANCE TESTS As shown in Figure 3, the PMUs are located in the first layer of the SPMS architecture and they are responsible for the phasors determination. The performance of this component is crucial for the performance of any SPMS in monitoring and control applications. For monitoring applications, if the measurements do not represent the real power system state an operator, who is using a SPMS to monitor the power system variation, could make wrong decisions. For control applications, especially in emergency control, there is not much time to take into account measurement errors. The main application reported in this paper, presented in the next section, concerns power system monitoring. To ensure the reliability of the data obtained by the SPMS, it was necessary to verify the performance of the PMU prototype under normal and abnormal conditions. The goal of the tests presented in this section is simply to validate the data obtained by the PMUs and not to test the performance of the prototype against any commercial PMU currently available. The Synchrophasors Standard IEEE 1344-1995 [15] does not specify PMU performance tests. The new Synchrophasors Standard PC 37.118 [16] defines measurement requirements, compliance verification and accuracy, but at the time that the tests were performed it was under revision. Discussions promoted by PRTT on this issue [8] show that further work needs to be done in this area. However for evaluating the reliability of data acquired by the prototype PMUs tests based on [7] were realized.

A. Test Settings As remarked in section II, the PMUs prototypes measure the instantaneous three-phase distribution voltage. Therefore the tests realized in this work emphasized the performance of the voltage measurement under nominal and off-nominal conditions using the modern test sets. Two main tests were set up as follows. B. Balanced three phase voltages at nominal frequency This test compares the performance of the PMU under balanced three phase voltage conditions in a range from 10% to 120% of the nominal voltage rating in steps of 10% at nominal frequency. For every voltage step a three second window of data was aligned according to the time stamp provided by each PMU unit. The aligned phasor magnitudes were compared against a reference value measured at every voltage step using certificate measuring instruments. The following results only measure accuracy with respect to the instruments used. In Figure 4 the deviation of the measurement phasor magnitude with respect to the reference value is shown. These results shows that the phasor magnitudes measured by the PMU presents a satisfactory performance with errors lower than 0.35% with respect to the reference value.
0,15% 0,10% 0,05% 0,00%
10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% 110% 120%

carried out in this section show that the characteristics of PMU prototype ensure the reliability of the results described in the next section.
0,1 0,08 0,06 0,04 0,02 Degrees 0
10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% 110% 120%

-0,02 -0,04 -0,06 -0,08 -0,1 -0,12 Voltage %

Fig. 5. Phase shift with respect to the reference.

0,025% 0,020% 0,015% 0,010% Error 0,005% 0,000% 55 -0,005% -0,010% -0,015% -0,020% 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

-0,05% Error -0,10% -0,15% -0,20% -0,25% -0,30% -0,35% Voltage %

Frequency

Fig. 6. Magnitude error under off-nominal frequency.

IV. SPMS PROTOTYPE PERFORMANCE The development of phasor measurement applications for monitoring is part of the MedFasee project. This section describes the SPMS prototype performance under normal and abnormal operating conditions using the software applications developed in the MedFasee project. A. Monitoring and Analysis of Frequency Oscillations Several examples of frequency oscillations monitoring in the Southern Brazil 60 Hz power system based on measured data from the SPMS prototype were monitored. Two weekdays were chosen to be show in the paper. In Figure 7, the behavior of voltage frequency measured by the PMU in Curitiba at heavy load (between 21h and 21h30min), is presented. Periods of 30 minutes, on Wednesday 30/11/2005, and on Thursday 31/11/2005, were analyzed. This graphics shows frequency oscillations with large magnitude in periods of heavy load.

Fig. 4. Absolute error in magnitude.

Figure 5 shows the phase difference between the measured data and the reference. C. Unbalanced (single phase) voltage at offnominal frequency This test is intended to evaluate the performance of the PMU under unbalanced and off-nominal frequency operation. The unbalanced condition is simulated by applying a singlephase voltage (phase A) to the PMU unit. The frequency is varied in a range between 55 and 65 Hz. The variation of the phasor magnitude with respect to the off-nominal frequency is shown in Figure 6. From this figure it can be concluded that the phasor magnitude measured by PMU is not significantly affected by off-nominal frequencies in the range 55 and 65 Hz. The tests

Fig. 9. Brazil South/Southeast Power System.

Fig. 7. Curitiba, Frequency Voltage.

In Figure 8, the frequency spectrum of the system frequency, at the heavy load period, is shown.

At 20h40min, circuits one and three of the same line were tripped. This caused the loss of 13 generators including 8 Itaipu generators, with a total generation shedding of 6,920 MW. There was a disconnection between the Northern/Southern and Southeastern/Northeastern regions of the Brazilian System. The first stage of the SPS (Special Protection Scheme) was activated with load shedding of approximately 2,842 MW. Figure 10 shows the frequency evolution from 20h35min until 21h00min.

Fig. 8. Curitiba, Frequency Spectrum.

An oscillation mode near 0.02Hz, corresponding to a period of approximately 50 seconds, can be observed. This mode appears with evidence in all load periods (heavy, medium, low). The use of the phasors obtained from the SPMS prototype allows many analyses in real time, including the identification of oscillation modes, using system real data, without the need of simulations with complex models. 1) Disturbance Detection Outage of a 765kV Transmission Line An important disturbance was registered by the SPMS prototype in October 04, 2005. At 20h38min, the circuit two of a three circuits of the 765 kV transmission line Itaipu/Ivaipor (shown in Figure 9) was tripped.

Fig. 10. Voltage frequency at three locations.

Figure 10 shows that at 20h40min26s the frequency started to fall reaching the minimum value of 58.25Hz in Porto Alegre, at 20h40min30s. The frequency recovery started at 20h40min33s and at about 20h43min33s the frequency reached 59.6 Hz. At approximately 20h56min the frequency returned to the nominal value. To show the SPMS prototype capability, it is shown, in Figure 11, the moment where circuit two (Itaipu/Ivaipor) was tripped and the subsequent attempt to reconnect the circuit.

Figure 13 shows the Brazilian System frequency calculated from the angular variation registered at the PMU located in Florianopolis. At 14h43min50s, an oscillatory process started in the frequency leading to an over frequency of 60.178 Hz, eight seconds after the disturbance (14h43min58s). The frequency returned to the nominal value approximately three minutes after the disturbance start, at 14h47min.

Fig. 11. Voltage frequencies zoom.

At 21h06min, all loads and the Northern/Southern Interconnection were restored. At 21h30 min, circuit one (Itaipu/Ivaipor) was reconnected. However, at 21h52min, circuit one was tripped again and it was followed by a generation tripping of 1,800 MW in Itaipu. In this disturbance there was no load shedding and the protection scheme kept all circuits of the Itaipu/Ivaipor line open. The frequency evolution of this disturbance is shown in Figure 12.

Fig. 13. Voltage frequency evolution at Florianpolis.

In Figure 14, the angular difference between the voltages measured by the PMUs installed in Curitiba and in Florianpolis, during the disturbance, is shown. The fast oscillations during the disturbance can be observed again. The angular difference between the points fell to approximately 1.8 degrees as a result of the active power flow redistribution in the network.

Fig. 12. Voltage frequency evolution in the second Itaipu disturbance.

Figure 12 shows that at 21h50min50s the frequency started to fall reaching the minimum value of 58.4Hz. After three minutes the frequency returned to the nominal value. 2) Disturbance Detection Outage of a 230 kV Substation On August 23, 2005, at 14h43min58s, part of an important 230 kV substation (Cidade Industrial), in Porto Alegre, was tripped. This disturbance resulted in a tripping of seven 230 kV lines, generation shedding of 215 MW and a load shedding of 38 MW. The loss of these components caused under voltage in the southernmost state area.
Fig. 14. Angular difference between Florianpolis and Curitiba.

The data sent by the PMU located in Porto Alegre, during the disturbance, did not arrive at the PDC as a consequence of an Internet connection failure between UFSC and PUCRS. The failure duration was of approximately 1 minute, although the PMU kept registering the data since it was connected to a no-break system. In Figure 15 the voltage magnitude monitored by the PMU in Porto Alegre is shown. The

disturbance caused an over voltage that was only partially observed due to the Internet connection failure.

identification of a natural oscillation mode with a period of approximately 50 seconds in the Brazilian Interconnected system. The prototype robustness was tested with the capture of important power system disturbances. The disturbances were registered with high precision and enabled the analysis of the disturbance effects at specific points of the low-voltage system. Finally, the paper results indicate that it is possible to obtain important information on power system dynamics using SPMS connected at low-voltage and Internet. The authors believe that the evolution of this technology could make the system operating conditions available to the wider public. VII. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Professor F. Neves, from CEFET-PR, and Professors F. B. Lemos and A. Manzoni, from PUCRS, and their laboratory staff for their cooperation to support PMUs installation.

Fig. 15. Voltage magnitude at Porto Alegre.

VIII. REFERENCES V. FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS The prototype described in this paper has been working for a year monitoring variables of Southern Brazil system during normal and abnormal conditions. Although the prototype was installed in the distribution system, many transmission system phenomenons could be observed. However, the connection at the distribution system level makes the analysis more complex since transient components due to switching in the distribution system add to frequency components associated to power oscillations at the transmission system level. Therefore, the next phase of the project comprises the installation and tests of a SPMS in the EHV (Extra High Voltage) Brazilian transmission system. Monitoring applications were giving special attention in this paper. However other applications are being developed such as model improvement of power system components using SPMS, fault location, emergency control and control applications aiming the small-disturbance angle stability. VI. CONCLUSIONS This paper described the performance of a SPMS prototype developed by the MedFasee project. The PMUs were installed in geographically distant cities of Southern Brazil. Performance tests were realized and have shown that the PMUs are able to monitor power system disturbances under normal and abnormal conditions. Performance results of SPMS under Internet have shown its capability in providing network connection for SPMS. The Internet has proved a good choice for the project but reliability can be an issue for industrial applications. The use of private networks by the utilities can be a reliable alternative. Monitoring of normal and abnormal conditions were accomplished by the SPMS prototype. The measured data allowed the analysis of the low-voltage frequency and
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8 [16] IEEE Standard for Synchrophasors for Power Systems, IEEE Standard PC37.118-2005, Jun. 2005. (under revision)

IX. BIOGRAPHIES
Ildemar Cassana Decker received his B. Sc. from the Catholic University of Pelotas, RS., Brazil. He obtained his M.Sc. (1984) and D.Sc. (1993) degrees in Electrical Engineering from Federal University of Santa Catarina and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, respectively. From 1980 to 1985 he worked in Federal University of Santa Maria, RS. Since 1985 he has been Associate Professor of the Federal University of Santa Catarina, in Department of Electrical Engineering. His general research interest is in the area of computer methods for power systems analysis and control and high performance scientific computing. Daniel Dotta received his B. Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Federal University of Santa Catarina, SC., Brazil. Since 2004 he has been developing his Ph.D. in Federal University of Santa Catarina, in Department of Electrical Engineering. His general research interest is in the area of modeling and object-oriented programming for power systems analysis and control and high performance scientific computing. Marcelo Neujhar Agostini received his degree in Electrical Engineering from Federal University of Santa Maria in 1996. He worked as a research engineer at the same institution before starting postgraduate studies. He obtained his D.Eng. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Federal University of Santa Catarina in 2002. Currently he works at this university as a researcher engineer. His general research interest are phasor measurements, software engineering applied to Electric Power Systems, Object-Oriented Modeling, Electric Power Systems Modeling, Electric Power Systems Dynamics and High Performance Scientific Computing. Sergio Luiz Zimath received his degree in Automation and Control Engineering from Federal University of Santa Catarina in 1997. Since 1995, he has been with Reason Technology where he was responsible for the development of the Digital Fault Recorder model RPIV, GPS Based time references among other products. Since 2005 he is in charge of the Research Projects Department, involved in the study of new technologies. Aguinaldo Silveira e Silva received his degree in Electrical Engineering from Federal University of Parana in 1977, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D degrees in Electrical Engineering from Federal University of Santa Catarina, in 1982 and UMIST, UK, in 1990, respectively. Since 1980, he has been with Federal University of Santa Catarina. His main research interests are in the area of power systems dynamics and control applications.