Self checking Phasor Data Concentrator

Unmet Need: Validation of synchrophasor measurements

The current techniques and phasor measurement units provide synchronized phasor measurements with desirable accuracy only in the steady state condition. During transient conditions, especially during power swings or during transient changes in power system frequency, both magnitude and phase angle change. Thus, Fourier-like algorithms derived from signal models that assume amplitude, frequency and phase angle to be constant for computing synchronized phase measurements, provide erroneous results as the assumptions are violated during transient conditions. Changes in amplitude, frequency, or phase angle generate cross coupling errors. Hence, present methods for computing synchronized phase measurements have limitations for achieving high levels of accuracy during the transient conditions.

The Technology: Method for validating synchrophasor data measurement quality

It is desirable to provide a technique for collecting synchrophasor data based on the proposed signal model that would yield better accuracy under realistic system conditions, particularly during transient conditions. The invention by researchers at WSU proposes a new statistical test for verifying the validity of synchrophasor measurements to assess their usefulness towards downstream applications. The tests show that many of the poor quality measurements can be filtered out using proposed automatic methods which will greatly improve the results derived from these measurement based applications.

Applications:

• Valid synchronized phasor measurements of voltages and currents at widely dispersed locations.

• Improved implementation of phasor measurement units in power systems.

Advantages:

• Helps identify different types of anomalies in PMU data.

• Each hypothesis of the measurement can be validated.

• Desired accuracy of phasor measurement units in steady state and transient conditions.

Patent Information: