1. Using Synchrophasors for Preventing Cascading Outages
CAMS/RRPA Panel Session
Mitigation and Prevention of Cascading Outages: Methodologies and Practical Applications
PES General Meeting, Vancouver, Canada
July 24, 2013
Eric Heredia (BPA) and Ryan Quint (BPA) on behalf of Dmitry Kosterev (BPA)

2. BPA “Defense in Depth” approach
Reliability starts with good planning – long-range and operational planning
… But, actual system conditions are often different from what is planned …
State estimator based real time contingency analysis
… But, your model may be wrong (model errors, control failures, etc) …
… or a dispatcher may not have adequate time to respond to an event …
Intrinsic indicators of system stability
IEEE Boise, Nov 16, 2012

3. BPA PMU Project 5-year, $35M investment began in 2010 PMU Installation
50 substations and wind sites
120 PMUs installed
Control center upgrades for system operators
PDCs, Applications, Archives
Wide Area Controls (RAS)
IEEE Boise, Nov 16, 2012

4. 4
Applications
The value of the investment will be realized through the deployment of applications
Engineering Applications
Understand system performance issues, make better capital investments, set safer operating limits
Real-Time Wide-Area Situational Awareness
Give grid operators better visibility of the system state
Wide Area Controls
Increase stability limits
IEEE Boise, Nov 16, 2012

5. Model Validation for Better Planning
BPA has installed PMUs at power plant POIs
General Electric Company implemented disturbance playback function in GE PSLF
BPA developed Power Plant Model Validation (PPMV) application using PMU data
Record:
POI bus voltage
POI bus frequency
Power plant MWs and MVARs
Point of Interconnection V I ~

6. Model Validation for Better Planning
What a good models looks like:
Blue line = actual recording
Red line = model
Voltage and frequency are inputs
Active and reactive power are “measures of success”

7. Model Validation for Better Planning
What a bad model looks like:
Blue line = actual recording
Red line = model
Voltage and frequency are inputs
Active and reactive power are “measures of success”

8. Mode Meter Mode Meter (Active)8
Mode Meter
Display of oscillation trend
Mode Meter (Active)
Developed by Dan Trudnowski at Montana Tech
Application estimates frequency and damping of inter-area oscillations from ambient data
Available to BPA dispatchers
Operating procedures are under development
IEEE Boise, Nov 16, 2012

9. Oscillation Detection Application9
Oscillation Detection Application
Oscillation Detection Application (Active)
Developed by Dan Trudnowski at Monata Tech
Scans voltages, frequencies, active and reactive power for signs of sustained or growing power oscillations
Applied to interties, load centers and generating facilities
The oscillation spectrum is divided into four frequency bins
A bin turns to red when a sustained oscillation is detected
IEEE Boise, Nov 16, 2012

10. How can we use angles?

12. Wide-Area Stability Controls12
Wide-Area Stability Controls
Wide-Area Stability Controls (Under Development)
Takes synchronized wide-area measurements to determine voltage stability risks
Enable fast switching of reactive devices
Timely actions are needed to ensure the system stability
IEEE Boise, Nov 16, 2012

13. Defense in Depth Study

14. Value of Synchrophasor Investment14
Value of Synchrophasor Investment
Improved capital investment
Better understanding of the system risks through deployment of engineering analysis applications
Improved reliability and large scale outage avoidance
Better situational awareness by dispatchers of oscillation and voltage stability risks
Wide area control schemes and defense in depth to deal with extreme events
Reliable wind integration
Improved modeling, validation
Dynamic transfer capability
IEEE Boise, Nov 16, 2012