Applications of PMUs in Power Distribution

Networks with Distributed Generation

Feng Ding
University of Strathclyde
f.ding@strath.ac.uk
C. D. Booth
University of Strathclyde
c.booth@eee.strath.ac.uk
Abstract-Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) have the
potential to play an essential role in power system monitoring,
protection and control in the future. Their ability to directly
measure and provide synchronized measurements of voltage and
current phasors at various system locations offer numerous
possibilities for ascertaining information relating to the state and
health of the power system.
This paper focuses on existing and potential future
applications of PMUs in distribution networks. As increasing
amounts of distributed generators (DG) connect to such
networks, bi-directional power flow and generally more
complicated network behaviour will be exhibited during normal,
transient and fault conditions. This is in contrast to the relatively
simple and predictable behaviour of traditional radial networks
[1]. Thus, higher level of performance and optimum (from both
economic and technical perspectives) placement of PMUs
throughout the system may be required [2]. Typical applications
of PMUs in distributed networks include state estimation,
dynamic supervision, instability prediction and control,
protection and fault location, and power quality monitoring [1].
This paper reviews the basic theory of PMU operation and
summarises research related to PMU application in the fields
listed previously. Future activities in the project will also be
presented; the project has access to PMU data, real time
simulation facilities and a number of physical PMUs.
Accordingly, plans for investigating the potential for
demonstrating additional novel functions using PMUs will be
discussed.
Index Terms-- Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU),
Distribution Networks, Monitoring, Control and Protection
I. INTRODUCTION
Synchronised phasor measurement, which already plays an
essential role in monitoring and control in many power
transmission networks, can also be used to improve the
performance of distribution networks. In future, distribution
networks will have higher numbers of distributed generators
(DG) connected to achieve objects including improving
efficiency and introducing more renewable energy sources,
such as wind and solar energy [3]. The majority of these
generators will be inverter-interfaced [4]. Flexible control and
enhanced monitoring are also required to meet more complex
operating conditions including bidirectional and potentially
unpredictable levels of power flow, guarding against
unintentional islanding, and perhaps allowing and controlling
intentionally islanded operation [1].
One of the most important characteristics of PMUs is the
extremely high precision of time references provided by the
GPS system. High accuracy and very low values of
uncertainty are required for the measurements of phasors at
distribution level compared to accuracy requirements at
transmission level. This is due to the reduced line lengths and
lower power flows in distribution networks, which generally
result in less difference between phasor magnitudes and
angles at different system locations compared to transmission
network phasors. [1]
Large amounts of work have been carried out in the
application of PMUs to distribution networks, including
PMU-based state estimation, protection and instability
prediction [1]. This paper presents an overview of the
background and basic function of PMUs in Section II. Section
III describes three applications of PMUs in distribution
systems, while Section IV describes proposed future work
and Section V concludes the paper.
II. PHASOR AND PMU FUNCTION
A. What Is a Phasor?
Fig. 1. A sinusoidal wave form and its phasor representation. [5]
As shown in Fig. 1, a sinusoidal wave form can be
represented as the equation:
x(t) = X
m
cos (t + )
Where is the angular velocity that equates to the
frequency of the signal, is the angle between a reference
point of observation and the time of the positive peak. X
m
is
the peak amplitude of the waveform, so the root mean square
(RMS) value of it is (X
m
2).
In reality, the wave form is always distorted by other
signals with different frequencies such as harmonics.
However, a phasor representation equates to a pure sinusoidal
waveform [5]. Therefore, it is very important to extract the
component of the signal with the specific frequency be
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analysed (usually the fundamental frequency). In a digital
measurement system, this is usually realised by the discrete
Fourier transform (DFT) or the fast Fourier transform
(FFT) [6]. Errors can be introduced if the input frequency of
the signal is different from nominal (assumed) frequency. It is
essential to eliminate high frequency components which
could cause aliasing errors, so pre-processing to filter out
these components and measure the fundamental frequency is
normally carried out prior to DFT/FFT operations.
Each phasor measurement is normally derived from a
specific portion of time span which is also known as the time
window. Phasor measurement continuously samples the
waveform in each time window and updates the value of the
phasor that is output.
B. Phasor Measurement Unit
Fig. 2. The function blocks of a typical PMU. [5]
Fig. 2 shows the function blocks of a typical PMU.
Analogue inputs are derived from the voltage and current
transformer. A PMU may collect data from different locations
in the system simultaneously and normally requires data from
all three phases to extract the positive-sequence component,
which is what is normally of interest and contains inflrmaton
that can be used to assess the state of the power system.
The signals derived from the secondary winding of the
voltage and current transformer are first converted (via A/D
converters) to voltage signals with a typical range of 10V
[5]. The sampling rate must be at least twice of the cut-off
frequency of the filter to satisfy the Nyquist criterion.
Oversampling is used in many systems due to the better
stability and accuracy that it offers [7].
The GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver normally
generates a one pulse-per-second signal to the phase-locked
oscillator to lock the phase of the sampling clock. Higher
sampling rate is always looking forward to so that the
accuracy of the estimation can be improved [5]. The
coordinates of GPS receivers of PMUs at measuring points all
over the world is determined by the satellites through GPS
system. The GPS receiver also creates time stamps for the
output of the microprocessor. The error of synchronisation
with modern units is of the order of a few hundred
nanoseconds [5].
The microprocessor uses the digital signal from the A/D
converter to calculate the quantities required, including the
magnitude and phase angle (calculated by the application of
discrete Fourier Transform) of the voltage and current, the
measured frequency and in some cases the rate of change of
frequency. The quantities of different measuring point can be
communicated and compared using the time stamps,
regardless of any time delay associated with the
communication system.
C. Structure of Phasor Measurement Systems
Fig. 3. Generally structure of phasor measurement systems. [5]
PMUs are usually installed in power system substations. It
is not necessary to install PMU in every substation since the
whole system can be observed using a placement strategy
[2]. Phasor Data Concentrators (PDCs) are used to gather the
data from several PMUs as shown in Fig. 3 and these can also
be used to analyse the output from a number of PMUs and
reject bad data. In [2], it is shown that PDCs can align the
time-stamps and record the data to coordinate with other
PDCs through a device termed the Super Data
Concentrator.
III. TYPICAL APPLICATIONS OF PHASOR MEASUREMENT UNIT
A. State estimation
Before the use of state estimation, the power system was
monitored and operated using operating guides and rules
produced according to the result of off-line (non real time)
load flow and stability analyses. However, unexpected actual
events were always present and uncertainty was accepted as a
fact of life.
The complex bus voltages represent the state of the system.
To address the aforementioned uncertainty, early state
estimation systems used both real and reactive power flows to
estimate the magnitudes and angles of voltage at the buses,
since the complex power flows and injections would be
determined once the system model and complex bus voltages
were obtained. Synchronised phasor measurements nowadays
provide an opportunity to accurately and directly measure the
state of the power system. [5]
Research has been carried into state estimation using PMUs
in distribution system with DG in [8]. A model of feeder-load
with a wind power plant (DFIG) connection is shown in Fig.
4.
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The simulation measured voltage magnitude at node 2
where DFIG was connected and the active and reactive power
flew from node 1 (feeder connection) to node 2 and compared
the results of calculation with and without PMU
implementation.
Fig. 4. The feeder-load model with DFIG connection. [8]
Three cases were investigated in the simulation process.
First, normal measurement devices were used without
consideration of the measurement accuracy. Second,
estimation using phasor measurement units but still maintain
the accuracy situation. Third, correct values of correction
matrix [9] were used with PMUs implementation.
Fig. 5. Behaviour of the wind turbine parameter in simulation. [8]
As indicated in Fig. 5, the first measuring time point was
when the wind speed started to increase and the second point
was when the steady state of the pitch angle was reached. The
simulation result is presented in TABLE I.
TABLE I
RESULT OF THE ESTIMATION IN DIFFERENT CASES
Measuring point
of the work
(power system)
Case
Estimation
Error [%]
1
1 1.0397
2 1.0165
3 0.6071
2
1 1.0752
2 1.0664
3 0.6306
It can be seen from the table that, for both time points,
PMU implementation without consideration of the
measurement accuracy only reduced error marginally. This
work illustrated obvious advantages of PMUs implementation
for improving the accuracy of estimation. However, another
most important data type which is voltage angle had not been
applied. Further work should be done in developing
estimation algorithms and considering the voltage angle.
B. Protection functions
Applications of PMUs at distribution level for power
system protection functions has been focused on applications
such as Loss of Mains (LOM) and fault event monitoring [1].
1) Loss of Mains
Loss of Mains occurs when part of the utility network with
distributed generators is disconnected from the rest of the
system [10]. Safety issues will be caused if LOM remains and
the islanded situation is not permitted in most countries. One
example of research that has been carried out is to compare
the islanding detection schemes with voltage angle
measurement and frequency measurement [11]. Results have
shown that the voltage angle scheme is capable of detecting
islanding at as small as 1% power imbalance, while
frequency-based schemes can only detect LOM when the
power imbalance prior to LOM is more than 4%.
Another research activity relating to LOM protection
involves using PMUs to measure the phase difference
between transmission substation and distributed generators
[12]. The phase angle variation between several sites in a 24-
hour period was found to rarely exceed 13 and was below
the threshold of traditional LOM detectors. An experiment
was conducted to measure the data between two sites in the
island of Ireland.
Fig. 6. Phase difference between two sites (solid) and total wind power
output (dashed) of the island of Ireland. [12]
It can be seen from Fig. 6 that the tendency of phase angle
difference almost closely tracked the wind power output with
exception of a period in the afternoon; this was possibly due
to the wind condition.
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Fig. 7. Instantaneous Phase difference less hourly steady-state average.
[12]
Fig. 7 shows the approximate steady state average
converted from an hourly continuous window. It is obvious
that the oscillation of phase angle difference rarely exceeded
_S with the exception at around 18:00; this was possibly due
to the operation of the wind farm.
This research presents important characteristics of phase
angle differences and deviations of wind power (it will be
widely applied in the future) during normal operation. It
offers an opportunity to allow generators to maintain
operating during system faults, provided that the phase
deviation remains in a particular range. More field
experiments will be carried out in the near future to verify
that this concept is feasible under all scenarios.
2) Fault Event Monitoring
Monitoring of power system events at lower voltage levels
provides certain advantages according to [13]. The research
collects PMU data from 400kV, 132kV and 400V during a
remote short-circuit fault from the 400kV substation and a
fault in the substation. For the remote fault, voltage
magnitude and frequency at the 400kV level has been
compared with those at the 400V distribution level. It is
summarised that the two pairs of trajectories of voltage
magnitude (scaled to same level) and frequency were in
almost total agreement, except for the depth of voltage dip
during the fault. For the fault in the 400kV substation, voltage
magnitude in per unit and frequency of 132kV level (400kV
level de-energised) have been compared with those at the
400V level. It is concluded that the two pairs of trajectories of
voltage magnitude (in per unit) and frequency were also very
similar.
The research suggests that measuring implementation at
lower voltage level provide a good observability in terms of
fault monitoring at higher voltage levels as well as the lower
voltage level itself. PMUs may therefore be used at lower
voltage level to provide wider and higher precision data sets
so that better monitoring quality can be achieved across all
voltage levels in the system. One case study had been carried
out in the Czech Republic [14]. Fault events at transmission
level were visible from data relating to frequency and voltage
angle gathered from PMUs at the distribution level. However,
incomplete information suggests that a reasonable PMU
measuring system should be set up and more field
experiments need to be carried out.
C. Instability prediction
Power system instability may be defined as a condition
where the power system is not able to remain in a normal
operating status during or after a disturbance [15]. According
to [16], instability prediction requires high data accuracy and
a supercalibrator has been developed out to fulfil this
requirement as shown in Fig. 8.
Fig. 8. Basic function of supercalibrator. [16]
From the supercalibrator, generator speed, torque angle and
acceleration can be obtained and they are sufficient to
monitor the dynamics of the generator. To predict the stability
of the system, the total energy of the system, which is defined
from generator torque angle and speed, will be compared with
the energy at the boundaries of stability. Once the energy of
the system is larger than the boundary levels, the system is
tending to be unstable. Total energy is calculated from the
output of the supercalibrator and the energy boundaries of
stability are determined by energy function [16].
PMU implementation in supercalibrator significantly
improves the accuracy of instability prediction by providing
precise data. Future work is dedicated to develop appropriate
visualization for the output of the supercalibrator and more
field experiments need to be carried out.
IV. PROPOSED FUTURE AREA OF RESEARCH
The aim of the authors research project is to investigate
the applications of PMUs in future distribution system with
many inverter-interfaced generators. Areas that will subject to
detailed investigation include prediction of instability or
voltage collapse and detection of islanded conditions, which
could represent significant challenges if, as anticipated, the
number of DG units increases in future. Solutions to the
issues of instability and voltage collapse may be to perform
load shedding, which may also address the situation of
intentional islanding in the future to make the islanded
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systems more stable. As it is not permitted in most of the
countries nowadays, the commonly used method to solve the
islanding issue is disconnected the DGs. In terms of modeling
and simulation, a simple system consisting of two generators
(inverter interfaced), one load and grid connection (strong
connection, weak connection or disconnection) will be
studied initially. Further information, such as the effect of
variations in inertia and different control strategies for
generators, inverters and loads should be obtained. Real time
simulation, actual PMU hardware and other protection and
control hardware will all be employed in the research project.
The oral/poster presentation will report on more details of the
work at the conference.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper has reviewed three typical applications of PMU
in distribution system including state estimation, protection
and instability prediction. PMUs possess significant
advantages in improving the data accuracy in all of these
applications. Phase angles, which can be directly obtained by
PMUs, also provide important information in LOM
protection. It has also been shown that monitoring at lower
voltage levels provides good observability of system
behaviour at higher voltage levels, as well as at the lower
voltage levels. However, one of the most important
parameters, which is relative voltage phase angles, has not
been applied in a significant number of applications. Future
work is dedicated in developing algorithms, setting up
systems and carrying out more field experiments.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was carried out within the Advanced Electrical
Systems group at the University of Strathclyde. The authors
would like to acknowledge the funding and support offered
by the department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at
the University.
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