IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 53, NO.

2, APRIL 2004

597

Open Design of Networked Power Quality Monitoring Systems

S. Chen, Senior Member, IEEE
AbstractPermanent continuous power quality monitoring is beginning to be recognized as an important aid for managing power quality. Preventive maintenance can only be initiated if such monitoring is available to detect the minor disturbances that may precede major disruptions. This paper establishes the need to encourage interoperability between power quality instruments from different vendors. It discusses the frequent problem of incompatibility between equipment that results from the inherent inflexibilities in existing designs. A new approach has been proposed to enhance interoperability through the use of open systems in their design. It is demonstrated that it is possible to achieve such open design using existing software and networking technologies. The benefits and disadvantages to both the end-users and the equipment manufacturers are also being discussed. Index TermsMonitoring, open system, power quality.

I. INTRODUCTION OWER QUALITY has always been an important issue to the electric power utilities, and it is gaining awareness among the consumers, who are beginning to understand the importance of having quality power. The introduction of new technologies, such as those more efficient and controllable power semiconductor-based devices, has degraded the quality of power supply. On the other hand, high technology equipment, such as a computer, is highly sensitive to such imperfections. As a result, both utilities and consumers are concerned with how to maintain power quality. As the electric power supply industry is being deregulated, the commitment to supply high-quality electricity is governed primarily by the contractual agreement between the supplier and the consumer. The enforcement of the contract can only be achieved if the status of the power quality is known throughout the contractual period. Hence, a proper monitoring system that is capable of observing power quality phenomena on a continuous basis is needed in order to provide the necessary information for enforcing the contract. Furthermore, improving power quality requires actions from both the utility and the consumer, and, hence, both would have vested interests in the power quality information gathered. Power quality concerns a subset of electromagnetic phenomena, considered under the wider umbrella of electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) [1]. It is comprised of low- and high-frequency conducted phenomena. Table I shows some of the common power quality phenomena and their typical characteristics according to IEEE 1159 [2]. The main issue
Manuscript received May 29, 2002; revised August 4, 2003. The author is with Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639 798. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIM.2003.820496

with power quality is how a certain disturbance affects sensitive equipment. As the impact of any disturbance depends not only on the source but also on the interconnecting network, the importance of each category of power quality phenomena varies from one system to another. Therefore, a power quality monitoring system has to be adaptable to the specific requirements of different power system networks. In hindsight, power quality monitoring appears to have similar functionalities as the customary supervisory, control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems. However, there are two noted differences that dictate how a power quality monitoring system ought to be designed. First, SCADA only concerns with the fundamental frequency voltage, current and power flow. On the contrary, power quality encompasses many phenomena as shown in Table I, and the significance of each phenomenon varies from system to system. It is, therefore, necessary to incorporate many different features in power quality monitoring instruments. As a result, they are usually specially designed equipment that tends to use nonstandard protocols and highly proprietary components. This has made it difficult to integrate instruments from different suppliers. Often, users face with limited choices of applications and restricted expansion prospects, as there is no third-party system that is compatible with the existing one. Second, SCADA information is only used by in-house personnel who operate and look after the power supply network. On the other hand, there is a much wider interest in the power quality information, especially in deregulated power markets where many different participants may have their respective contractual obligations toward maintaining power quality. Independent power producers that use renewable wind or solar resources, and transmission companies that use high-power semiconductor devices, will need to comply with the harmonic emission limits. Consumers and utilities alike will be concerned with the frequency and severity of power supply interruptions. Hence, any disturbance captured by the monitoring system will be of interest to these parties. An effective power quality monitoring system therefore has to be able to disseminate the acquired information to all parties with ease. The information technology revolution did not escape the attention of many power system instrument designers, and many have made use of the new technologies in their systems. Although many designs are still proprietary, the industry is moving toward open systems in the interest of better interconnectivity and expandability [3], notably in the EMS arena [4]. This paper considers similar approach of using open system in the design of power quality monitoring system. It makes use of an open software and networking architecture to achieve an interoperable

0018-9456/04$20.00 2004 IEEE

598

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 53, NO. 2, APRIL 2004

TABLE I SOME TYPICAL POWER QUALITY PHENOMENA

Fig. 1.

Typical power quality monitoring system.

power quality monitoring system that is independent of computing platform, development tool, programming language, and hardware and software vendor. II. POWER QUALITY MONITORING Fig. 1 shows a typical scenario of power quality monitoring. It summarizes the monitoring responsibilities into three broad stages of data gathering, data processing and analysis, and result dissemination. In essence, power quality monitoring is an information gathering process. Disturbances are first captured and later classified into various categories. Their characteristics and corresponding indices such as total harmonic distortion (THD) for harmonic distortions and system average RMS variation frequency index (SARFI) for voltage variations are then derived to measure their severity. The data will also be used to determine the disturbance causes and locations. In a deregulated environment, this information may also be used for logging reports on disturbance incidences or for settling disputes between various parties. During monitoring, disturbances detected and captured by the front-end DAQ (data acquisition) units are sent to central servers where they are further processed and stored. This requires an in-house communication, which is typically made up of some modem dial-ups or Ethernet LAN. However, similar to many existing SCADA systems, the communication protocols are usually proprietary and, hence, devices from different manufacturers are not able to interact with each other. Consequently, DAQ units A, B, and C, and the server systems X, Y, and Z all have to be acquired in tandem from the same vendor. This also implies that the users choice of applications is limited to

those that are implemented by the vendor. Moreover, compromises have to be made should the vendor applications do not fully satisfy the users needs, notwithstanding some customizations are always possible. Normally, expansion is only possible by acquiring similar devices from the same vendor and users will face significant problems should the vendor decides to discontinue the instrument. This inflexibility can be avoided if the communication protocol is based on an open standard that allows integration with third party instruments. The internet is universally used as the mean to disseminate the processed results to various parties, which may include the public at large. They are generally provided in some standard formats. The most popular formats are the power quality data interchange format (PQDIF) developed by EPRI that is currently being considered by IEEE as a new standard [5], and the common format for transient data exchange (COMTRADE) format [6]. Even though these formats allow results to be shared, they generally require manual handling of data files. A better approach is to allow results to be exchanged directly between applications without engaging data files. The above inflexibilities and the need to handle data files are due to the lack of open interfaces between the applications shown in Fig. 1. The in-house communications and the public access networks generally have proprietary protocols but these protocols are usually built on some common connection-oriented transports such as the infamous transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP). Incidentally, this transport is also used by many other interfaces including the Microsoft Distributed Common Object Model (DCOM) and the recent .NET framework [7], the J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) from Sun Microsystems [8] and the Object Management Group (OMG) common object request broker architecture (CORBA) [9]. These interfaces are well established with phenomenal acceptance in software and information technology industry. Hence, it will be of significant advantages to adopt them in power quality monitoring rather than redeveloping another interface. Furthermore, their designs are centered on Internet, which is also the preferred environment for implementing the graphical user interface (GUI) of the monitoring system. However, in order to achieve maximum flexibility, the adopted technology ought to be independent of hardware and software platforms, programming language, and vendor.

CHEN et al.: OPEN DESIGN OF NETWORKED POWER QUALITY MONITORING SYSTEMS

599

This rules out .NET as it only works on Microsoft Windows platform, as well as J2EE, since it is based solely on the Java programming language. Only CORBA, which is a combined effort from many vendors, fulfill this prerequisite. Moreover, the CORBA specifications specifically demand interoperability between applications from different vendors.

III. CORBA CORBA provides platform-independent programming interfaces and models for portable distributed object-oriented computing applications. Its independence from programming languages, computing platforms, and networking protocols makes it highly suitable for development of new distributed applications or their integration into existing distributed systems. Permanent power quality monitoring system involves distributed devices that need to communicate with each other and it is a potential candidate for using CORBA. Fig. 2 shows the inner workings of CORBA. It enables communication between client and server applications through several interfaces, which are conceptually linked by the object request broker (ORB). The interface can be static (stub and skeleton) that is specific to a particular application and is defined using interface definition language (IDL). The IDL is decided at software development time and it is translated into language-specific stub and skeleton that are integrated into the client and server applications, respectively. This approach is the simplest and is suitable for most applications. It is also used to demonstrate the benefits of adopting CORBA in power quality monitoring. In addition, there are the generic ORB interface and the dynamic interface that remain unchanged for all applications. These interfaces enable CORBA interactions to be defined during run time. Information about the interfaces is made available through the Interface Repository, a CORBA service that provides run-time access to the IDL definitions. On the other hand, the object adapter provides a more flexible way of handling CORBA transactions. It adapts a server application into multiple interfaces with each interface customizable with different attributes. The attributes include security settings that can be used to control the type and level of client accesses. Hence, a server application can have multiple adapters with each targeted for certain class of clients. CORBA specifications include an ORB interoperability architecture called general inter-ORB protocol (GIOP). GIOP is an abstract protocol that specifies transfer syntax and a standard set of message formats to allow independently developed ORBs to communicate over any connection-oriented transport. The Internet inter-ORB protocol (IIOP) is a GIOP implementation over TCP/IP. All ORBs are expected to implement IIOP. This IIOP, through a network, completes the link between the client and server applications. Other than the aforementioned CORBA specifications, there are emerging subsets of CORBA that can be further exploited. Some of the ongoing developments are Real-time CORBA, Minimal CORBA for embedded systems, and fault-tolerant CORBA.

Fig. 2.

CORBA components.

Fig. 3.

Simple CORBA-based DAQ Unit.

IV. USING CORBA IN POWER QUALITY MONITORING There are many ways of utilizing CORBA in power quality monitoring. The obvious choices are in the in-house communications and/or the public access networks. To use it as the communication protocol in the in-house communications, the DAQ units are designed as CORBA server applications as they are the sources of information. Fig. 3 shows the design of a simple DAQ unit implementing the three basic requirements of data acquisition, event capture, and harmonic analysis. Data acquisition, through the device driver, gathers the raw digital samples from the DAQ hardware. The acquired samples are forwarded to the event capture and harmonic analysis through procedural calls. In harmonic analysis, Fourier transform is performed on the samples to compute the harmonic spectrum. In event capture, the RMS value over half a fundamental cycle and the instantaneous values of voltages are analyzed in order to detect the occurrence of voltage variations or voltage transients. Upon detection, the raw samples are stored as an event that can be distributed to other parts of the system. Accesses to the three modules are through the CORBA interfaces as defined by several IDL definitions. These definitions are described in the Appendix. Using the IDL, other CORBA applications gain access to them via the GIOP and ORB. To demonstrate this open system design, a web-based power quality monitoring system [10] as shown in Fig. 4 has been constructed. The DAQ units are PCs running Windows 2000 with a data acquisition card. First, the IDL are translated into C++ skeletons, and are linked together to create a DAQ unit application. At the same time, the translated C++ stub is used to develop a Windows 2000 based GUI application. Through the IIOP, the GUI application gains access to the results in the DAQ units. Fig. 5 shows one user interface of

600

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 53, NO. 2, APRIL 2004

Fig. 4.

Prototype web-based power quality monitoring system.

Fig. 6. Web-based display of captured event.

Fig. 5.

User interface from C++ PQ GUI application.

the GUI, depicting snapshots of the distorted three-phase current waveforms. The IDL are also translated into Java stubs, which are used to develop several Java Servlets. The Servlets, through the links provided by the stubs, relay the DAQ unit results to the respective HTML pages and Applets for display. Fig. 6 shows a voltage sag event resulted from an equipment failure, viewed through a standard web browser. In this prototype, the web server used is Tomcat while Borland Visibroker provides the CORBA ORB. V. DISCUSSIONS The above CORBA-based design is centered on the simple monitoring framework of Fig. 1. However, as CORBA design is object-oriented and hence modular, this approach can equally be applied to more complicated design. CORBA embraces Internet transports and hence, web technologies can be easily integrated as illustrated by the use of the Java GUI in the prototype. Having standard interfaces enables interoperability as well as eases many processes such as the reporting of disturbance incidences required in some deregulated markets. The report can be transferred directly from one application to another without the need for resorting to cumbersome data files.

Making a power quality monitoring system interoperable presents end-users with more choices and expansion opportunities. This, in retrospect, appears to disadvantage the instrument manufacturers with increased competition. However, it also enables the vendors to concentrate on their own niche capabilities rather than having to spread their resources across all aspects of power quality monitoring. Those with expertise in data acquisition can focus on designing DAQ units, leaving other data processing and server applications to others. Similarly, those working on disturbance identification and source location can rely on others DAQ unit to provide the necessary data. This, in the long run, should nurture a more dynamic market for power quality monitoring instruments and should encourage more extensive monitoring in the interest of better power quality. The main notion of adopting CORBA is that it has a welldesigned protocol, and it is widely and increasingly used in the information industry. There are also the advantages of having many other CORBA services that can be utilized. Among them are naming and location services for identifying and managing the DAQ units and servers, security services to prevent malicious access from distrusted clients as well as confidentiality protection of transferred messages, and event services for use as notifications or alarms.

VI. CONCLUSION A new approach toward the development of a power quality monitoring system has been proposed. The approach focuses on the need to share information between different applications operating in different phases of power quality measurements and analyzes. A well-known information technology called CORBA is chosen to provide the necessary application interfaces that help to improve interoperability between systems from different vendors. These interfaces are independent of computing platform, programming language and instrument vendor. However, this approach can only be successful if the interfaces are accepted by the standardization bodies such as IEEE and IEC, and they are universally adopted by all vendors.

CHEN et al.: OPEN DESIGN OF NETWORKED POWER QUALITY MONITORING SYSTEMS

601

Fig. 7.

IDL definitions for Data Acquisition.

Fig. 9. IDL definition for Harmonic Analysis.

(Fig. 8) defines various structures for storing the settings of this particular analysis. Its interface consists of functions for setting up the analysis and to retrieve information about the captured events. Similarly, the Harmonic Analysis IDL (Fig. 9) consists of definitions of structures and functions for undertaking harmonic analysis. REFERENCES
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] Fig. 8. IDL definitions for Event Capture. [9] [10] Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Part 2: Environment, Section 5: Classifications of Electromagnetic Environments , IEC 61 000-2-5, 1995. IEEE Recommended Practices on Monitoring Electric Power Quality, IEEE Std. 11591995, 1995. A. Hirota, M. Kikuchi, T. Owaki, and Y. Tani, Dependable, open and real-time architecture for power systems, Hitachi Rev., vol. 49, no. 2, pp. 4852, Aug. 2000. E. Vaahedi, A. Y. Chang, S. Mokhtari, N. Muller, and G. Irisarri, A future application environment for B.C. Hydros EMS, IEEE Trans. Power Systems, vol. 16, pp. 914, Feb. 2001. IEEE Recommended Practice for a Power Quality Data Interchange Format: An Extensible File Format for the Interchange of Power Quality Measurement and Simulation Data, IEEE Std. 1159.3-2003, 2003. IEEE Standard Common Format for Transient Data Exchange (COMTRADE) for Power Systems. IEEE Std. C37.111-1999. Building Distributed Applications with .NET (2002). [Online]. Available: http://www.msdn.com/net/ N. Kassem, Designing Enterprise Applications with Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 2000. The Common Object Request Broker: Architecture and Specification (1998). [Online]. Available: http://www.omg.org S. Chen, C. L. Zhang, and Y. Z. Liu, A multi-channel monitoring system for system-wide power quality measurements, in Proc. 2000 4th Int. Conf. Power System Technology, pp. 953958.

APPENDIX I IDL DEFINITIONS The following IDLs define the CORBA-based interfaces between the DAQ unit application and the other server applications. In DAQ IDL, shown in Fig. 7, there are two enumeration lists containing constants for use to control the DAQ hardware. The interface here consists of functions to manage the operation of the DAQ hardware such as StartDAQ and StopDAQ, as well as to retrieve the processed results. The Event Capture IDL

S. Chen received the B.E. (Hons) and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1992 and 1996, respectively. He has been a Postdoctoral Fellow with the University of Canterbury on power quality related projects. He is now an Associate Professor with the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.