Application of synchrophasor measurements for improving operator situational awareness

This paper presents an online monitoring system for operator situation awareness using real-time synchrophasor measurements developed under a DOE R&D and demonstration project. The system provides wide area power system visualization, near real-time event replay and early warning of potential stability problems. The technologies implemented in this system include the memory residence object oriented database, special synchrophasor data transfer from application server to each user's computer, event oriented database using Binary Large Object (BLOB), data partitioning, and modal analysis using synchrophasor data. This system has been interfaced with the openPDC and tested using the real time or simulated synchrophasor measurements. The system architecture and the technologies involved are described in detail in the paper. The system is tested using simulated 179 PMUs in the WECC system. Test results show that the performance can meet the requirements of wide area power system visualization, real-time power system monitoring and the potential angle separation can be predicted by the monitoring system.