IEEE Transactions on Power Apparatus and Systems, Vol. PAS-100, No.

1, January 1981 353

MEASUREMENT AND MODELING OF

PACIFIC AC INTERTIE RESPONSE TO RANDOM LOAD SWITCHING
J. F. Hauer, Member, IEEE R. L. Cresap, Member, IEEE
THE BONNEVILLE POWER ADMINISTRATION
Portland, Oregon

ABSTRACT - In recent years spectral analysis Another alternative, pursued here, is to

of system response to random load changes has extract information from the natural system
become a standard engineering tool at the noise produced by random load switching.
Bonneville Power Administration. Analysis of Determination of dynamic response to arbitrary
random fluctuations in power on the Pacific AC inputs is complicated by the fact that the
Intertie has provided information about the random switching itself is not directly ob-
influence of system operating conditions upon servable, so that its statistical properties
the effectiveness of Pacific HVDC Intertie must be estimated along with the model for
modulation, and about dynamic behavior of the system dynamics. General ttciniques for doing
western power system generally. This technique this are developing rapidly, and recent work
has also been used to estimate the required encourages the view that very powerful tools
size for a superconducting electromagnetic for identifying power system dynamics can be
storage device which will provide backup to crafted already. However, adequate load switch-
HVDC Modulation, and has detected a major ing models can often be constructed a-priori.
system mode 6 months before it was first ob- When the objective is to monitor changes in
served in a transient disturbance. system dynamics or to assess equipment noise
environments the switching model becomes less
INTRODUCTION important, and in many cases can be left
undetermined.
A modern power system must meet strict
performance and reliability standards in the ANALYSIS TOOLS
face of escalating system complexity, rapidly
rising costs, and increasingly stringent oper- Our analysis of noise signals relies
ating constraints. This demands careful design primarily upon frequency-domain 6 iethods employ-
and management. Historically, the industry has ing the Fast Fourier 'Transform (FFT). This
achieved this with heavy reliance upon mathe- is motivated by the availability of efficient
matical models structured like the power system and versatile FFT algorithms, and by objectives
itself. The simple transient stability simula- well served by analog models specified via
tion done with analog equipment 20 years ago their frequency response. When needed, pole/
has grown into an elaborate digital computer zero locations have been determined by optimal
program representing thousands of buses and fitting of transfer functions; this is also a,
hundreds of detailed machines. Indeed, it is useful data smoothing procedure. Trends in the
likely that the capabilities of such, a program literature suggest +h time-domain methods are
have outstripped the power system analyst's becoming competitive and may prove superior
ability to obtain requisite empherical data for identifying multi-input processes, espe-
such as recent equipment settings and accurate cially when a discrete model is sought for
load parameters. incorporation into digital control logic.
Field tests that involve injecting test
signals can be expensive, and may hazard equip- Properly scaled, the FFT
ment and conceivably the security of the entire
system. Even a low-level test signal can prove N-1l
disruptive if its j A
component frequencies are X(n) = I x(k)e wnkAt wn = 2nnAf (1)
concentrated near a poorly damped swing mode. k=O
Signals that spread their energy thinly over a
broad spectrum of frequencies reduce this risk, can be used to directly estimate the spectral
and are usually either a continuous or a binary density S (f) for a noise signal x(t). (Suit-
approximation to white noise.1 able fil ering and averaging procedures are
To be useful, an injected noise signal treated in the Appendix.)
must be strong enough to produce a response
discernable from natural system and instrumen- NOISE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PACIFIC AC INTERTIE
tation noise. This usually limity 2 this ap-
proach to local response tests, through Since fall of 1977 numerous records have
facilities such as HVDC modulation could be been taken of power variations on the Pacific
programmed to test response between widely AC Intertie. Samples are obtained every 100
separated points on an occasional basis. msec for an hour, and are usually processed in
512-point segments with 75 percent overlap.
Linear least-squares tend removal is performed
on each segment, and the result double-Hanned.
The overall coefficient used to scale FFT
energy into a (single-sided) noise power spec-
80 SM 580-1 A paper recomended and approved by the trum estimate S.xx is
IEEE Power System Engineering Committee of the IEEE
Power Engineering Society for presentation at the 128 2 (At) 2 =
IEEE PES Summer Meeting, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2(^T 0.00142857, (2)
July 13-18, 1980. Manuscript submitted January 29,
1980; made available for printing May 2, 1980. or -28.451 db.

U.S. Government work not protected by U.S. copyright.

 354

spectra have been fit with a transfer function

T, having a real pole and 2 blocks of 2 poles
o
0 \S
\ ahd 2 zero's each. The first spectrum is also
fit using an extra pole, with improved results
due to an anomalously high initial slope. The
301 root locations for Iminimize
U
fitting 1
error = ln2( J(jf )2 el(f)' (3)
kk euk,xx k,
25~
The real pole in T represents the spectrum
m
of random load switching activity, which is the
0
z
input to the power system. This input can
reasonably be viewed as a weighted sum of
W 20
0
random telegraph l1ignals, each with an au0ocor-
relation function of form R(l) = R e and
statistically independent of the others. The
z
implied 1/f distribution baseline noise energy
has been consistently observed.
15 The spectral peak near 0.35 Hertz is
associated with the Pacific AC Intertie swing
mode. No modes at lower frequencies had been
detected since the Intertie became operational
measured response (twice Hanned)
Q
model response 1 real pole)
in 1968, so the persistent peak near 0.2 Hz was
10 - A -
B - - model response 12 real poles) unexpected. This mode is discussed in a later
section.
USE OF AC INTERTIE NOISE SPECTRA
0.01 0.1 1.0 IN CONTROLLER DESIGN
FREQUENCY IN HERTZ
BPA is participating in a Department of
Energy sponsored project to develop and field
Figure 1 Spectrum of Pacific AC Intertie power test e2 small superconducting magnetic energy
fluctuations with strong 0.2 Hz storage (SMES) unit. The unit is to serve as
activity. an alternate to BPA's HVDC modulation system,
which provides damping for Intertie swings.
HVDC Modulation is a key element in maintaining
the present 2,500 MW rating of the Intertie.
To be useful, the SMES unit must be sized large
30 -
enough to not saturate under normal noise
0 conditions. As the noise characteristics
reflect the feedback of the device itself, a
model for feedback effects was needed in feasi-
25 -
bility studies. HVDC Modulation provided a
suitable check upon the model.

White Noise (T-'(s) T9 Is) tPAC

O 20-
Z
co
o measured response (twice Hanned)
TPSMES
a
cc
0
model response
uJ
0.
kC(s)
z 15-

10 - S2 +r +2NZ S +W13D1 WLP WD S

S2 +p, +WJ2NP S +WLD2 S +wLP S +WD

LOCAL MODE LEAD LOW-PASS DIFFERENTIATOR GAIN

NOTCH FILTER COMPENSATER FILTER

I ,I I ,1- I I -s l kC(s)
0.01 0.1 1.0
FREQUENCY IN HERTZ

Figure 3 Model for noise interaction with

Figure 2 Spectrum of Pacific AC Intertie power HVDC and SMES modulation systems.
fluctuations with weak 0.2 Hz activity.
Let TB(s) be a system transfer function
Figures 1,2 show limiting cases among a describing Intertie power response APP to
dozen spectral estimates taken while HVDC control input AP DC and let the controller have
modulation was turned off in late 1977. Both response kC(s)APAC.
 355

rating of about 10 MW, which is adequate to

avoid saturation in more than 99 percent of
Gaussianly distributed noise events.

Figure 6 Response of PwtoiSMES modula th

30 U' H L'

FREQUEN4CY IN HERTZ

Figure 4 Response
modulation.
of PAC to PDC' for HVDC

Using the model of Figures 3,4 and the Tu

of Figures 1,2 gives the closed-loop noise
predictions shown in Figure 5. These limiting
cases safely bracket later observations, and
correspond to them well enough to validate the The extent to which HVDC modulation damps
approach. the Intertie mode, is quite evident in Figures 2
and 5, showing Sx to be a useful check upon
compensator tuning.X The position of this mode
can be directly estimated by model fitting when
30
modulation is off, although data windowing
increases apparent damping somewhat. With
modulation on the closed-loop model of Figure 3
can be fit to , but this has been found very
Oc measured response data-sensitive wWen visibility of the Intertie
25 predicted response, using model of Fig. IA
-
- - predicted response, using model of Fig. 2 mode is low.
DETECTION AND ANALYSIS OF A NEW SWING MODE
a
z 20
The strong 0.2 Hz resonant peak in power
ui
fluctuation spectra for the Intertie was unex-
Q) pected, as no swing mode below 0.3 Hz had been
0 observed since Intertie energization. In the
15 spring of 1978,- 700 MW of generation was dropped
in the Northwest. This caused the swing in
Intertie power shown in Figure 7 where, after 2
swings near the usual 0.35 Hz frequency, power
10 settles into virtually undamped 0.2 Hz oscilla-
tions while moving toward a new operating
point. Subsequent observations show that the
response of this mode to a given disturbance
can change from well damped to almost undamped
within 4 hours.-
FREQUENCY IN HERTZ

Figure 5 Predicted and measured spectra for

the Pacific AC Intertie, with HVDC
modulation in service.
These calculations were repeated for the
SMES unit. The compensator was retuned for the
15th-order system model shown in Figure 6,
using design criteria and root locus methods
that are detailed in Beference 12. The ex-
pected value a DC of AP-DC was then found by
estimating the power spectrum for AP Mv
calculating the arga under it, and appTying
Parseval's Theorem. This produced a 3YDC
356
1024-point segments with a 992-point overlap;
2300 the window was similar to double Hanning.) The
coherency spectrum

2200

z -20
LU 2100 \BCH
0
CL

Lu 2000 db
z -40 - PPG & E
1900

1800

0.6 f A
1700 _-_| 10 SEC |-

TIME
rK2 '{
A

Figure 7 Response of the Pacific AC Intertie HERTZ

to generation loss in the Pacific
Northwest.
Figure 9 Noise power and coherency spectra for
BPA interchange with PG&E and BCH.
30
r2y
,yx-yxxzz
5 ( fS
(f) ( (f)
yyf
[0,1] (4)

shows the fluctuations in Northwest interchange

a 20 with California (PG&E) and Canada (BCH) as
z strongly synchronized at 0.2 Hz; time signals
Lu
show them to be in phase. This too is consis-
tent with the distributed model.
z
a 10 CONCLUSIONS
Random fluctuations in tieline quantities
strongly reflect the dynamic properties and
operating conditions of the power system and
its loads, though in a complex way. Their
0.4 0.6 spectral analysis is a useful means- for detect-
FREQUENCY IN HERTZ ing changes in system characteristics, and
confirms that quantitative models can be de-
rived from these spectra. Results obtained in
other industries, and literature trends, encour-
Figure 8 Spectrum of Pacific AC Intertie power age the view that more sophisticated methods
fluctuations, with harmonic spacing will prove highly effective in power system
at peaks. surveillance and model identification.
Tests suggest that substantial dynamic
Figure 8 was instrumental in establishing activity on the power system escapes notice
a tentative model for this behavior. The through the limited frequency response of
nearly harmonic placement of modes is charac- transducers, data channels, and recording
teristic of a uniformly distributed continuous devices. During August 1978, fluctuations in
dynamic system such as a rod uijergoing tor- a 480 MW exchange between BPA and Tacoma City
sional oscillations. Such a model was devel- Light were recorded simultaneously at BPA's
oped for the western system, and closely matches Tacoma Substation and at TCL's Cowlitz Substa-
the data shown here as well as transient sta- tion, as part of a load identification test.
bility studies that also show this mode. The Transducer bandwidth was 10 hertz. Initial
spectra in Figure 9 were obtained at BPA's processing with the HP analyzer produced the
control center using a Hewlett-Packard Model results shown in Figure 10, matching results
5420A spectrum analyzer. (A 20 minute record obtained with standard BPA analysis programs.
was sampled every 160 msec and processed in
 357

-20 technFqyeyo
ture. ' '
are thoroughly treated in the litera-
Several authors furnish key rou-
tines as starting points for developing general
computer programs. Constructing such a pro-
gram, tuning it to particular applications, and
-40 interpreting results all require substantial
insight into the underlying transform processes.
db The FFT is essentially an efficient device
for fitting a Fourier series to a record of N
equi-spaced samples x(k)=x(tk). The fitting
-60 process assumes that the record is repeated
indefinitely, with period T=NAt. To reduce the
VT effects of Gibb's phenomenon the usual tactic
VC is to modify the record so that this virtual
VC signal is smooth at the points where segment of
-80 _ I I I x(t) are spliced together. In general, one
must first offset the data by some low-order
time function fit to it (trend removal) and
then multiply the result by a suitable weight-
ing function (windowing).

db 1 XRi
-601 P

QT~~~~~~~~~~~

0 4 8 12
HERTZ
Figure 11 Recorded response to a lightly
Figure Spectra
10 for fluctuations in BPA damped system to a short pulse.
interchange with Tacoma City Light.
Bus voltage spectra at the two substations
are essentially identical, and display numerous
sharp peaks out to roughly 16 Hertz. The
spectra for real and reactive power fluctua-
tions are structured similarly, as are pairwise
coherencies among P,Q,V, at each substation.
The noise level in P is several megawatts at
each substation, so these spectra indicate that
there substantial dynamic loads in or near
are - 0
TCL, that there was some anomaly in the
or
power supply system (such as one or more mal-
functioning exciters). We have observed simi- z

lar, though simpler, spectra for air condition- i

ing loads. Voltages on major Lower Columbia
generation buses were inspected during the next
spring, and no such peaking was found. How-
ever, similar activity has since been observed -m reVonse
true

on the Pacific AC/DC Intertie system. BPA has resonsewithHanning

brought this to the attention of other utili-
ties so that, if malfuntioning equipment is
involved, corrections can be made. Noise
analysis can be an effective and inexpensive o 1.0
protection measure for early detection of FREQUENCY IN HERTZ
system problems.
APPENDIX Figure 12 Data window effects upon estimated
response of system for Figure 11.
ANALYSIS METHODS
Figures
11,12 show windowing effects upon
While new algorithms are still emerging, measured frequency response of a lightly damped
the theory and methodology central to FFT system. Truncation of signal history to a
length-T segment x (t) corresponds to the
"boxcar" window w (t), with Fourier Transform
358

W0(f)
wOM = T
T sin(ntTf)
itTf
(Al) 3. R. L. Cresap,
D. N. Scott, W. A. Mittel-
stadt, and C. W. Taylor, "Damping of
Since x (t) is the time-domain product of Pacific AC Intertie oscillations via
w0(t) and xkt), X (f) is the frequency-domain modulation of the parallel Pacific HVDC
convolution of W0(T)
with X(f) -- i.e., each
X (f )is the sum of all X(f') weighted by
Intertie," CIGRE, Paris 1978, Paper no.
14-05.
W (f-f'). This accounts for the peak distor-
tion and ripple in (b), where the objectionally 4. R. K. Mehra and D. G. Lainiotis, eds.,
high values of W (f) beyond its first zero have System Identification: Advances and Case
"leaked in' considerable energy from remote Studies. N.Y.: Academic Press, 1976.
frequencies. In (c) the Hanning window
n
5. I. Gustavsson, L. Ljung, and T. Soder-
w (t) = sin2h
h
(t+T)
~~~~2T (A2) strom, "Identification of processes in
closed loop - identifiability and accuracy
has been used with h=l. Ripple reduction is aspects," Automatica, vol 13, pp. 59-75,
accompanied by broadening and lowering of the 1977.
response peak, and implies a fundamental trade
between leakage reduction and increased blur- 6. E. 0. Brigham, The Fast Fourier Transform,
ring. Use of w2 in standard FFT processing Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,
implies that each XR(f) is strongly affected by 1974.
the values of X at f+Af and f+2Af. This pro-
vides a useful element of cross frequency 7. S. A. Tretter, Introduction to Discrete-
averaging in noise analysis, though sharp peaks Time Signal Processing, N.Y.: Wiley,
may need special treatment. 1976.
In practice, residual trends often invali-
date the first several FFT points, and anti- 8. J. F. Hauer, "Computer Routines for Fitting
aliasing filters might truncate useful resultg Transfer Functions to System Response
an octave or two below the Nyquist cutoff Measurements," BPA technical report,
(half the sampling frequency). In the latter April 1977.
case specialized7 1gFT algorithms may provide
faster processing. 9. H. Akaike, "Canonical correlation analysis
Analysis of noise records is further of time series and the use of an informa-
complicated by the extensive averaging needed tion criterion," in ref. 4, pp. 27-96.
to estimate such quantities as the autocorre-
lation function R (t) and its Fourier trans- 10. D. G. Childer, ed., Modern Spectrum
form S (f), the spectral density.- Properly Analysis, N.Y.: IEEE Press, 1978.
scaled, ife FFT
11. A. Papoulis, Probability, Random Variables,
X k(n)
= I
N-1
N71 )-'j w
x(k)eiwn kAt W = 27tnAf (A3)
and Stochastic Processes,
Hill, 1965.
N.Y.: McGraw-
k=O n
12. R. L. Cresap and J. F. Hauer, "Power
can be used to estimate 1S I directly. One pure System Stability using Superconducting
strategy is to average theX |X(n) | within set Magnetic Energy Storage - Dynamic charac-
frequency intervals. Another is to process the teristics of the BPA System," presented
record in length N' segments and average the at First Annual Mechanical and Magnetic
|X(n)| ; this requires less computer memory, Energy Storage Technology Meeting, Luray,
and is more amendable to process monitoring. Virginia, 24-26 October 1978.
Considerable overlap of adjacent segments is
acceptable, so long as the offset between them 13. R. L. Cresap and J. F. Hauer, "Emergence
is long enough to substantial statistical of a New Swing Mode in the Western Power
independence to develop. R (T) is a guide to System," to be presented at the 1980
this, but a full quantitative analysis must be Summer Power Meeting, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
done in7 the frequency domain and include window
effects.
REFERENCES
1. K. E. Bollinger, R. Winsor, and D. Cotcher,
"Power system identification using noise
signals," presented at the 1976 Summer
Power Meeting, Portland, Oregon, Paper A76
339-2.
2. G. S. Hope, S. T. Nichols, an,> T. Carr,
"Measurement of transfer functioin. of
power system components under operating
conditions," IEEE Transactions on Power
Apparatus and Systems, Vol. PAS-96,
pp. 1798-1808, November/December 1977.
 359

John F. Hauer (S'59 - M'61) R. L. Cresap (S'64, M'70)

was born in Colville, graduated from Oregon State
Washington, on October 22, University in 1965, he
1936. He received the B.S. joined Boeing Company where
degree summa cum laude from he investigated the appli-
Gonzaga University in 1961 cation of modern control
and the Ph.D. degree from theory in the design of
the University of Washing- missile guidance and con-
ton as an NSF Graduate trol systems.
Trainee in 1968, both in From 1969 to 1971, he was
~electrical engineering. employed by the Army Corps
From 1954 to 1957 he served of Engineers. This work
in the Army as an electronics technician. In involved modeling hydro generating equipment,
1961 and 1962 he worked on nuclear reactor and the design and analysis of generator con-
system identification at General Electric, trol systems including the 'development of Power
while enrolled in the Advanced Engineering System Stabilizers for the Corps generation in
Training Program. In 1963 and 1964 he devel- the Northwest.
oped spacecraft navigation and guidance methods He is presently employed by the Bonneville
at Boeing, for use in Lunar Orbiter design and Power Administration. In this position he has
mission control. From 1968 to 1975 he was on developed numerous simulation programs to
the Computing Science faculty at the University investigate various aspects of power system
of Alberta, where he became an associate pro- dynamic behavior, in particular the development
fessor in 1972. His teaching responsibilities of techniques to improve power system damping.
there centered upon mathematical programming He has also been responsible for the develop-
and systems analysis, and his research focused ment of several control systems, including new
upon methods for optimizing nonlinear processes closed loop digital AGC algorithms.
under constraints such as control outage sur- Mr. Cresap is a member of the Power Society
vival. Since 1975 he has worked at BPA, pri- of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
marily as a Systems Analysis engineer on special Engineers and serves on the IEEE Working Group
projects involving system identification, on Computer Representation of Excitation Systems.
modeling, and control. He is also a member of Eta Kappa Nu.
Dr. Hauer is a member of PES, SIAM, and
Alpha Sigma Nu.