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Substation asset health has always been one of the utmost concerns for utilities. The substation secondary assets such as current transformers, potential transformers, and coupling capacitor voltage transformers play vital roles for system situational awareness and grid operations. This paper proposes a novel on-line substation instrument transformer health monitoring system (SITHMS), which merely uses time-synchronized and high-resolution phasor measurement unit (PMU) data. The SITHMS can provide early warning and alert utility personnel to diagnose the equipment malfunction and take proactive actions for asset management to prevent equipment failure. The core component of the SITHMS is a model-based three-phase substation-level linear state estimator, which features a built-in largest normalized residual (LNR) module that can detect anomalies in PMU data by using substation model and configuration, so as to probe if there is malfunction or potential failure of these secondary equipment. In addition, we present the system's implementation architecture and testing environment setup. Case studies with the PSCAD simulated data and field PMU data from actual substations at American Electric Power (AEP) demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As more phasor measurement units (PMUs) are installed, portions of the power grid become observable with just phasor measurements, making feasible the estimation of the state of these observable portions at much faster rates than the traditional state estimator. Although such a linear state estimator (LSE) was proposed over a decade ago, the first field implementation was completed at Dominion Virginia Power in 2013. Although this LSE is a stand-alone function not integrated to their energy management system (EMS), it demonstrated the feasibility of the LSE. In this paper, we present the design, development, and implementation of an LSE that is fully integrated with the existing EMS and can estimate the state of the extra high voltage portion of a power system at 30 times per second. Integration of the LSE to the existing EMS environment and some of the issues in the design and testing are presented in this paper. The work paved way for LSE to supply cleansed PMU data to other synchrophasor applications that are sensitive to data quality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the spotlight on smart grid development around the world, it is critical to recognize the key factors contributing to changing power-system characteristics. This is more apparent in distribution systems with the integration of renewable energy sources, energy storage, and microgrid development. Source and load control at the distribution level is a key requirement of the evolving system. These activities require distribution automation (DA) strategies that take advantage of available technologies, while promoting newer solutions. It is necessary to create a roadmap for holistic DA strategies in a smarter grid. Sustainable and resilient grid development is a paradigm shift requiring a new line of thinking in the engineering, operation, and maintenance of the power system. Distributed control architectures based on dynamic load and source data should be explored as a possible solution. This paper discusses a novel approach that integrates protection, control, and monitoring using high-performance computing at the primary distribution substation level. The business case for infrastructure investment in the distribution systems is also discussed. This paper concludes with a discussion on emerging and future technologies for DA to improve the resiliency of a sustainable grid. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The rapid increase of phasor measurements on the high voltage power system has opened opportunities for new applications to enhance the operation of the grid. To take advantage of the high sampling rates of these measurement data, these applications will require a high-bandwidth, networked communication system. The specifications for this next generation communication system that will overlay the continental power grids are under intense discussion at this time by organizations like the North-American Synchro-Phasor Initiative (NASPI). In this paper we present a method to simulate, design and test the adequacy of a communication system for a particular transmission grid. The main difference from typical communication system studies is that we formulate the communication requirements from the power grid application requirements, that is, the communication design, simulation and testing is from the viewpoint of the anticipated power applications. The method is demonstrated on a WECC 225 bus and a Polish 2383 bus transmission system models. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The availability of synchro-phasor data has raised the possibility of a linear state estimator if the inputs are only complex currents and voltages and if there are enough such measurements to meet observability and redundancy requirements. Moreover, the new digital substations can perform some of the computation at the substation itself resulting in a more accurate two-level state estimator. The main contribution in this paper is that this two-level processing removes the bad data and topology errors, which are major problems today, at the substation level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IT IS GENERALLY RECOGNIZED THAT A HIGH-BANDWIDTH and highly available networked communication system should overlay the transmission system topology in order to enable the control and protection envisaged today to make the grid more efficient and more reliable. The specifications for such a communication system have been difficult to develop, however, because it needs to support a great variety of applications, many of which have not yet been developed. Organizations such as the North American SynchroPhasor Initiative (NASPI) are trying to build on this vision of a communication system that can utilize phasor measurement data to initiate fast controllers, including flexible alternating current transmission system (FACTS) devices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]