Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999

Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999

Trends in Power System Protection and Control

Miroslav Begovic1, Damir Novosel2, and Mile Milisavljevic1

1
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta GA, miroslav@ee.gatech.edu
2
ETS Institute, ABB Power T&D, Raleigh, NC, Damir.Novosel@chtet.mail.abb.com

interchange increase, an increasingly competitive

Abstract environment, and introduction of FACTS devices make
the power system more complex to operate and to control,
and, thus, more vulnerable to a disturbance. On the other
As a consequence of deregulation, competition, and
hand, the advanced measurement and communication
problems in securing capital outlays for expansion of the
technology in wide area monitoring and control, FACTS
infrastructure, modern power systems are operating at
devices (better tools to control the disturbance), and new
ever-smaller capacity and stability margins. Traditional
paradigms (fuzzy logic and neural networks) may provide
entities involved in securing adequate protection and
better ways to detect and control an emergency.
control for the system may soon become inadequate, and
the emergence of the new participants (non-utility
Better detection and control strategies through the concept
generation, transmission, and distribution companies)
of wide area disturbance protection offer a better
requires coordinated approach and careful coordination
management of the disturbances and significant
of the new operating conditions. The paper reviews the
opportunity for higher power
key issues and design considerations for the present and
transfers and operating economies. Wide area disturbance
new generation of SPS and emergency control schemes,
protection is a concept of using system-wide information
and evaluates the strategies for their implementation.
and sending selected local information to a remote
location to counteract propagation of the major
1. Introduction disturbances in the power system. With the increased
availability of sophisticated computer, communication
System-wide disturbances in power systems are a and measurement technologies, more "intelligent"
challenging problem for the utility industry because of the equipment can be used at the local level to improve the
large scale and the complexity of the power system. When overall emergency response.
a major power system disturbance occurs, protection and
control actions are required to stop the power system Decentralized subsystems, that can make local decisions
degradation, restore the system to a normal state, and based on local measurements and remote information
minimize the impact of the disturbance. The present (system-wide data and emergency control policies)
control actions are not designed for a fast-developing and/or send pre-processed information to higher
disturbance and may be too slow. Further, dynamic hierarchical levels are an economical solution to the
simulation software is applicable only for off-line problem. A major component of the system-wide
analysis. The operator must therefore deal with a very disturbance protection is the ability to receive system-
complex situation and rely on heuristic solutions and wide information and commands via the data
policies. Today, local automatic actions protect the system communication system and to send selected local
from the propagation of the fast-developing emergencies. information to the SCADA centre. This information
However, local protection systems are not able to should reflect the prevailing state of the power system.
consider the overall system, which may be affected by the
disturbance.
2. Types of Disturbances and Remedial
The trend in power system planning utilizes tight Measures
operating margins, with less redundancy, because of new
constraints placed by economical and environmental Phenomena which create the power system disturbance
factors. At the same time, addition of non-utility are divided into the following categories: angular stability,
generators and independent power producers, an voltage stability, overload and power system cascading.

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 Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999
Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999

2.1. Angular stability

2.3. Overload and Power System Cascading
The objective of out-of-step protection as it is applied to
generators and systems, is to eliminate the possibility of Outage of one or more power system elements due to the
damage to generators as a result of an out-of-step overload may result in overload of other elements in the
condition. In the case of the power system separation is system. If the overload is not alleviated in time, the
imminent, it should take place along boundaries which process of power system cascading may start, leading to
will form islands with matching load and generation. power system separation. When a power system separates,
Distance relays are often used to provide an out-of-step islands with an imbalance between generation and load
protection function, whereby they are called upon to are formed with a consequence of frequency deviation
provide blocking or tripping signals upon detecting an from the nominal value. If the imbalance cannot be
out-of-step condition. handled by the generators, load or generation shedding is
necessary. The separation can also be started by a special
The most common predictive scheme to combat loss of protection system or out-of-step relaying.
synchronism is the Equal-Area Criterion and its
variations. This method assumes that the power system A quick, simple, and reliable way to re-establish active
behaves like a two-machine model where one area power balance is to shed load by underfrequency relays.
oscillates against the rest of the system. Whenever the There are a large variety of practices in designing load
underlying assumption holds true, the method has shedding schemes based on the characteristics of a
potential for fast detection. particular system and the utility practices [5-6].

2.2. Voltage stability While the system frequency is a final result of the power
deficiency, the rate of change of frequency is an
Voltage stability is defined by the System Dynamic instantaneous indicator of power deficiency and can enable
Performance Subcommittee of the IEEE Power System incipient recognition of the power imbalance. However,
Engineering Committee [3] as being the ability of a change of the machine speed is oscillatory by nature, due to
system to maintain voltage such that when load the interaction among generators. These oscillations
admittance is increased, load power will increase, and so depend on location of the sensors in the island and the
that both power and voltage are controllable. Also, response of the generators. The problems regarding the
voltage collapse is defined as being the process by which rate-of-change of frequency function are [7]:
voltage instability leads to a very low voltage profile in a
significant part of the system. • A smaller system inertia causes a larger peak-to-peak
value for oscillations. For the larger peak-to-peak
It is accepted that this instability is caused by the load values, enough time must be allowed for the relay to
characteristics, as opposed to the angular instability which calculate the actual rate-of-change of frequency
is caused by the rotor dynamics of generators. reliably. Measurements at load buses close to the
electrical center of the system are less susceptible to
The risk of voltage instability increases as the oscillations (smaller peak-to-peak values) and can be
transmission system becomes more heavily loaded. The used in practical applications. A smaller system inertia
typical scenario of these instabilities starts with a high causes a higher frequency of oscillations, which
system loading, followed by a relay action due to either a enables faster calculation of the actual rate-of-change
fault, a line overload or hitting an excitation limit. of frequency. However, it causes faster rate-of-change
of frequency, and, consequently, a larger frequency
Voltage instability can be alleviated by a combination of drop.
the following remedial measures means: adding reactive
compensation near load centers, strengthening the • Even if rate-of-change of frequency relays measure the
transmission lines, varying the operating conditions such average value throughout the network, it is difficult to
as voltage profile and generation dispatch, coordinating set them properly, unless typical system boundaries and
relays and controls, and load shedding. Most utilities rely imbalance can be predicted. If this is the case (eg.
on planning and operation studies to guard against voltage industrial and urban systems), the rate of change of
instability. Many utilities utilize localized voltage frequency relays may improve a load shedding scheme
measurements in order to achieve load shedding as a (scheme can be more selective and/or faster).
measure against incipent voltage instability [4].

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 Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999
Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999

• Adaptive settings of frequency and frequency decisions have to be taken locally. The relay system is
derivative relays may enable implementation of a preferred to be adaptive, in order to cope with system
frequency derivative function more effectively and changes. To deal with out-of-step prediction, it is
reliably. This will be discused later. necessary to start with a system-wide approach, find out
what sets of information are crucial, how to process
3. Possible Improvements in Control and information with acceptable speed and accuracy.
Protection
3.2. Voltage Instability
Existing protection/control systems may be improved and
new protection/control systems may be developed to The protection against voltage instability should also be
better adapt to prevailing system conditions during addressed as a part of hierarchical structure.
system-wide disturbance. While improvements in the Decentralized actions are performed at substations with
existing systems are mostly achieved through local signals and signals obtained from slow
advancement in local measurements and development of communication with other substations and/or central level
better algorithms, improvements in new systems are based (e.g. using SCADA data). The higher hierarchical level
on remote communications. However, even if requires more sophisticated communication of relevent
communication links exist, systems with only local system signals and a coordination between the actions of
information may still need improvement since they are the various substations.
envisioned as fallback positions.
The recommended approach for designing the new
The modern energy management system (EMS) can generation of voltage instability protection is to first
provide system-wide information for the network control design a voltage instability relay with only local signals.
and protection. The EMS is supported by supervisory The limitations of local signals should be identified in
control and data acquisition (SCADA) software and order to be in a position to select appropriate
various power system analysis tools. The increased communicated signals. However, a minimum set of
functions and communication ability in today's SCADA communicated signals should always be known in order to
systems provide the opportunity for an intelligent and design a reliable protection, and it requires the following:
adaptive control and protection system for system-wide (a) determining the algorithm for gradual reduction of the
disturbance. This in turn can make possible full utilization number of necessary measurement sites with minimum
of the network, which will be less vulnerable to a major loss of information necessary for voltage stability
disturbance. monitoring, analysis, and control; (b) development of
methods (i.e. sensitivity analysis of reactive powers),
which should operate concurrent with any existing local
3.1 Angular stability
protection techniques, and possessing superior
Out-of-step relays have to be fast and reliable. The performance, both in terms of security and dependability.
increased utilization of transmission and generation
capacity as well as the increased distance of power 3.3. Power System Cascading and Load Shedding
transmission are some of the factors that cause an out-of- Strategies
step situation to develop rapidly. The interconnected
nature of power systems cause large geographic areas to Conventional load shedding schemes without
be affected by an out-of-step condition. The present communications are not adaptive to system conditions
technology of out-of-step tripping or blocking distance which are different from the one used in the load shedding
relays is not capable of fully dealing with the control and design. For the relays to adapt to the prevailing system
protection requirements of power systems. conditions, their settings should change based on the
available spinning reserve, total system inertia, and load
Central to the development effort of an out-of-step characteristics. These values may be periodically
protection system is the investigation of the multi-area determined at the central site from SCADA data and
out-of-step situation. The new generation of out-of-step provided to the relays using low speed communications.
relays has to utilize more measurements, both local and
remote, and has to produce more outputs. The structure of In addition, the actual load, which would represent an
the overall relaying system has to be distributed and assigned percentage for shedding at each step, may be
coordinated through a central control. In order for the periodically calculated at a central site based on the actual
relaying system to manage complexity, most of the load distribution. However, the system characteristics may
change depending on the separation points. If the

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 Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999
Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999

separation is controlled from a central site or can be degree of accuracy, (1) whether an out-of-step is
predicted, an algorithm may calculate the settings and imminent, and (2) the boundary across which this out-of-
assign the appropriate load in coordination with switching step will take place. This algorithm has been tested
actions. However, high speed communication may be thoroughly using a Monte-Carlo-type approach. At each
required to and from the central location for fast-developing test, random values are assigned to line impedances, load,
disturbances, such as multi-machine angular instability. generator inertias, as well as disturbance location. It is
Another aspect, may be adding a correction element to a found that the algorithm is capable of making accurate
scheme. If only slow speed communications are available, prediction.
a fast load shedding scheme may be implemented to stop
system degradation. When adequate information is To illustrate how the algorithm works, consider the power
available, corrective measures may be applied. system shown in Figure 1. This system is a modified
version of the IEEE 39-bus test system. In Figure 1, each
If the composite system inertia constant is known, the actual generator is marked with a circle, and each load with a
power imbalance may be calculated directly from the square; the size of each symbol indicates relatively the
frequency. This detection should be fast (to avoid a large power generated or consumed at the node. For example,
frequency drop) and done at the location close to the center Generator 34 supplies more MW to the grid than does
of inertia. High speed communications are required to Generator 38.
initiate load shedding at different power system locations.
Further, changes of load and generation, with frequency and 38 ● ● 34
in particular voltage, impact the power imbalance and 37 ● ◆ ◆ ◆

calculation of the average of the frequency derivative. In 39

25
● ◆ ◆
x ◆ ◆ ●
33
addition, the power system imbalance changes after the
x
initial disturbance due to dynamic system changes.
◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

2 ◆

gens;
◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

◆ ◆

● ◆ ●

Thus, relay settings should be based on the spinning loads

30 ● ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ●

35
36
◆ ●
reserve, total system inertia, and load characteristics and ◆ ◆ ◆ ● 32
x outage 31
distribution. In conclusion, sophisticated models and/or
high-speed communication may be required for accurate
PREDICTED O.O.S. LOCATION
estimation of the amount and distribution of the load to be
shed. If communications are available, it is easier and more
reliable to calculate the amount of load to shed from the Figure 1. Graph of the 39-bus test system.
switching information and the mismatch (based on data on
load and generation before the separation) in the island.
time simulation
To avoid disadvantages of the underfrequency load #37
#38
shedding and difficulties with implementing the rate-of- 150
change of frequency function, the automated load shedding
100
that will reduce overloading or prevent system instability
#34
before the system is isolated is proposed as an advantageous 50
strategy. rotor #36
angles, 0 #33
deg. #35
4. Example: Angular Stability -50

-100
An algorithm for predicting the location at which an out-
of-step can take place following a disturbance in a large- -150 #31
#32
scale system is shown as an example of the hierachical #39
-200
protection and control strategies using communications.
#30
To implement this scheme, one needs a central computer
0 1 2
that receives information from across the system. The sets
time, sec.
of crucial information that require fast communications
consist of: generator speeds, and changes in line status.
Other information needed by the algorithm are generation Figure 2. Time domain simulation of the system.
and load levels. Using these sets of information, a simple
and quick processing method is able to tell, with a high

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 Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999
Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999

A disturbance is introduced to the system where two 5.1. Power System Modeling and Spectral
lines are simultaneously removed (each line is marked by Characteristics
an 'x' in Figure 1). This information is fed to the
algorithm, which predicts that an out-of-step will occur We consider a generic N-machine, p-bus power system
across the line 2-25. Figure 2 reveals that the two described by the following swing equation:
generators 37 and 38 eventually separate from the other
generators. All line angles have been checked and none M i ∆ω i = − Di ∆ω i + Pai (t )
but line 2-25 indicate the boundary of the out-of-step.
The angle of critical line is shown in Figure 3. This ∆δ i = ω B ∆ω i
confirms the result of the algorithm.
where ∆δ i and ∆ωi represent the deviation of the rotor
angle of critical lines angle and its speed relative to the synchronous reference
0 frame, Pai(t) is the accelerating power, i.e. imbalance
between the mechanical and mechanical power, Mi is the
-100
inertia constant for machine i, ω B is the synchronous
deg. -200 angular frequency, and Di is the damping factor
corresponding to the machine i. Swing equation can be
-300 linearized to obtain
2-25

0 1 2
∆x = A∆x + B∆u
time

where vector ∆x is the vector obtained by concatenating

Figure 3. Angle of critical line. rotor angle deviation vector and rotor speed deviation
vector, and ∆u is the vector of power imbalances for each
Such an algorithm requires a centralized scheme and high- machine. Information about possible modes of the system
speed communication links across the wide system. can now be obtained by eigenanalysis of matrix A, and its
Decentralized scheme requires communications with a participation factors.
central location. According to this hierarchical scheme,
each regional computer issues control actions to alleviate This however, is not the only way that the information on
problems that are imminent within its jurisdiction; the the oscillatory modes can be obtained. In a system
coordination among regions is left to the central subject to the impulse excitation, the oscillatory modes
computer. can be determined from the power spectral density of the
system response. In other words, the modes would
5. Example: TCSC Control appear as peaks of the power spectral density function of
state variable x calculated as:
In this section we briefly present a method for online
detection of interarea oscillations. The method does not
require the topological knowledge of the system and is
based on the spectral characteristics of the locally
observable data. Moreover, we introduce a different where F represents the Fourier transformation. Peaks of
approach to the power system stabilization. We apply the the power spectral density correspond to the modes of the
globally available information about the system to the interarea oscillations, and can be therefore determined
adaptation of TCSC (thyristor-controlled series from measurements of x over a time window, if we
compensator). The control we propose attempts to consider x as a time-frequency distribution.
optimally adjust the line admittance on sample to sample
basis in order to reduce the interarea oscillations in the Descriptive (measurement) quantity we use is the machine
power systems. We explain how such approach may speed. We think of interarea oscillations as energy
combine the global system information with locally exchanges between the groups of the machines, this
observable quantities and eventually result in the damping energy exchange should be visible from the machine
of inter-area modes. speed data. Moreover, the machine speed is easily
measurable quantity, thus making a perfect candidate for

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 Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999
Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999

descriptive quantity for a pattern recognition task. machine belongs. The phase data is summarized in Table
Algorithm we propose is following: 1. Indeed, machines 1 through 8 have the phase angle of
approximately 11 degrees, machines 11,12 and 13 have
• Collect machine speed data. phase angles of approximately 3 degrees, while phase
• Perform spectrum estimation on machine speed data. anlges of speed spectra of other machines do not belong
• Identify the frequencies of possible modes of inter-
area oscillations.
• Perform clustering on the phases of machine
spectrum data at inter-area frequencies.

Identify inter-area groups with clusters of phases of

machine spectrum data.

to any of the groups.

Table 1. Phase angles of the power spectral density
at the interarea oscillation mode at 0.4 Hz.

We propose to use the information about groups of

machines belonging to interarea modes to formulate an
Figure 4. Transient disturbance of the test system emergency control by modulating the admittance of the
as described in the text below.
thyristor-controlled series capacitor (TCSC). The control
we propose is based on the premise that we only want to
We illustrate the performance of the algorithm on the enhance the stability of the system by applying the
following example: Figure 1 shows the machine speeds of admittance adjustment control. The main control still
the 16 machine 64-bus NPCC system subject to the fault relies on power system stabilizers, which usually perform
on line between busses 28 and 29. The fault is cleared by this task very well. We would like to use the admittance
tripping the line after three cycles but still divides control to minimize the interarea oscillations which are
machines in three groups thus producing the interarea exhibited as the flow of energy between machines or
oscillations. In this simulation we used the transient groups thereof. We use the rate of change of machine
model for synchronous machines. It is obvious that the speeds as an indication of the energy change at particular
system is divided into three groups that oscillate against machine. In that sense, we would keep the undesirable
each other. In one group we have machines 1 through 8, variations of the machine velocities to their minimum,
in second machines 11 through 13 and all other machines reducing the energy transfers between different groups of
oscillate by themselves. Modal analysis of the linearized machines. In turn, reduced energy exchange reduces the
system reveals five oscillatory modes under 1Hz: at interarea oscillations, which is the goal of our control.
0.4150 Hz, at 0.5564 Hz, at 0.7326 Hz, at 0.8066 Hz, and While this type of control does not guarantee the stability,
one at 0.9825 Hz. Participation factor analysis indicates it does guarantee that the Lyapunov exponents of a system
that machines most likely to oscillate at 0.415 Hz are with such control will be smaller than the ones of the
machines 1 through 9 and 13 through 16. Machine 15 system without the control. This is a result of the facts
seems very prone to the mode at .5Hz, machines 10 that machine states are the state variables of linearized
through 13 are susceptible to the mode at 0.7326 Hz, and system, and that the logarithm is a monotonous function.
machines 14 through 16 are prone to oscillatory mode at In that sense, the system is more stable than the system
0.8066 Hz. We use the phase angles of the power spectral without the control.
density at the given mode to determine the group to which

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 Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999
Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999

Moreover, proposed type of control can be computed with • Above two tasks have to be performed with minimum
a cost of QR decomposition for the matrix of sensitivity change of the line admittances since the TCSC
coefficients and one matrix multiplication. In addition, devices have range typically limited to a certain
this type of the control guarantees the minimum energy percentage of the nominal line admittance, for a
solution, i.e. minimum per-sample change of line variety of reasons.
admittances. The stability of the control computation • Above considerations exclude the apriori knowledge
procedure, low computational cost, and easy of the fault location.
parallelization of the process this algorithm very
appealing for the real time applications on multiprocessor Taking into account the above consideration, selection
architectures.
process may be based on an extensive sensitivity analysis
spanning a large number of situations, either by using
5.2. Minimum Energy Control
some form of a composite objective function, or by
It was stipulated that the changes in machine speeds are applying some effective means of combinatorial
an indicator of inter-area oscillations. Moreover, the optimization, such as genetic algorithms. The end result is
change of machine speeds indicates the direction of the the allocation of a limited number of TCSC controllers,
energy fluctuations. The reduction of machine speed which perform reasonably well over a finite set of
changes does therefore reduce the interarea oscillations.
Per-sample machine speed change can be written in different disturbance scenarios.
following form:
The results of some comparative tests, obtained by time
 ∆δ  domain simulation on the system and fault used in Figure
∆ω k dt = ∆ω k +1 − ∆ω k = A'  k  + P∆y 4 are shown below.
 ∆ω k 

where P is the sensitivity of the machine speed changes

with respect to the line admittance. By setting
∆ω k dt = 0 , the control is computed as the solution of
following equation:

 ∆δ 
P∆y = A'  k 
 ∆ω k 

In contrast to this optimization, control of system modes

would imply the minimization of ∆ω . Since TCSC Figure 5. Comparison of the machine #16 speeds
devices present a permanent change in the topology of a (fault as per Figure 4):
power network, their location needs to be determined
before the fault has occurred. Having this in mind, TCSC ---- Original speed in center of inertia
selection process has to consider several criteria: reference frame. No control is applied.

• Various and possibly multiple faults may happen. ……. Machine #16 speed with TCSC
• All machines need to be controlled at the same time modulation control.
to insure the control of all interarea modes (this
condition may be relaxed by adaptive tracking of the -.-.- Machine #16 speed with power system
interarea groups). stabilizer control.
• Since all machines participating in a certain interarea
mode will have similar angles and rates of change of solid line Machine #16 speed with both PSS and
angles (speeds), it is technically possible to use just a TCSC controls applied.
representative machine from a group. This may be
useful in speeding up the control processing to enable The presented scenarios involve situations when no
real-time control. control was applied to the system under disturbance, and

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 Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999
Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999

when group of 5 optimally selected and tuned PSS and 5 economical solution for the wide area disturbance problems
TCSC was used, both individually and together. are very attractive. Intelligent emergency control systems
(i.e. systems described in the paper) provide more secure
The opportunity to speed up processing in power system operation and better emergency responses, allowing utilities
stabilizing devices to enable real-time control is in the to operate at closer transmission and generation margins.
inclusion of the distributed architectures, which combine
low per-unit cost with high efficiency. The control 7. Acknowledgement
algorithm we have described in previous section can be
easily implemented in the parallel architecture with great Part of the work presented in this paper was funded by the
reduction of complexity and large parallel efficiency. National Science Foundation under Grant #ECS-9404895.
We gratefully acknowledge this assistance.
6. Conclusion
8. References
A large disturbance such as a sudden outage of a
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system instability, to perform actions to restore the system
to a normal state and minimize the impact of the [2] A. P. J. Malt, et al, "Computer Based Supervisory Control
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As communication and computer technology continue to [3] Voltage Stability of Power Systems: Concepts, Analytical
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products provides significant savings to utility, the System Relaying Committee, IEEE Publication, 93THO596-7
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[6] System Disturbances: 1986-1997 North American Electric
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protection against few contingencies only), information [7] A. Apostolov, D. Novosel, and D.G. Hart, “Intelligent
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[8] NERC Planning Standards and Guides, "System Protection
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[9] K. Vu, M. Begovic, D. Novosel and M. Saha, “Use of
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