SYNCHRONIZED PHASOR MEASUREMENTS
-
A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
A.G. Phadke
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA
e-mail: aphadke@vt.edu
Abstract: Synchronized Phasor Measurements
(PMU) were introduced in mid-1980s. Since then, the
subject of wide-area measurements in power systems
using PMUs and other measuring instruments has been
receiving considerable attention from researchers in
the field. This paper provides a historical overview of
the PMU development. It is pointed out that the PMU
is a direct descendant of the Symmetrical Component
Distance Relay introduced in late 1970s. From the
early prototypes of the PMU built at Virginia Tech, a
commercial product evolved which has been installed
in the field at various locations around the world.
Applications of PMU measurements to power system
operation and control remains a very important subject
for current research.
Introduction
The blackout of 1965 in North-East United States
led to many fruitful areas of research in power system
operations, in order to make the power systems more
secure. Wide area measurements were first introduced
in power systems as inputs for static state estimators.
The estimators were designed to provide a real time
estimate of the current state of the power system so
that its security from the point of view of next
contingencies could be judged. The state estimate also
provided a base-case load flow on which various
optimization programs could be based.
It was always recognized that the technology of that
period (mid 1960s) would not allow simultaneous
measurements with high data rates. Therefore, the
measurement system and the estimators were designed
with a view to provide what could be described as a
quasi-steady state approximation to the state of the
power system.
Development Milestones
The PMU development was supported at Virginia
Tech by various funding agencies over the years. The
principal funding for the early development came from
0-7803-7525-4/02/$17.00 0 2002 IEEE.
US Department of Energy, US Electric Power
Research Institute, and the US National Science
Foundation. Funding for research in applications
of PMU measurements to power system protection
and control problems came from Bonneville
Power Administration, American Electric Power,
and New York Power Authority. The important
stages in the development of PMU are:
Invention of Symmetrical Component
Distance Relay (SCDR)
Synchronizationof Sampling Clocks
Development of the prototype PMU
Commercial PMU
Field Installations
Applications Research
Highlights of these developments are described
in the following sections.
Invention of Symmetrical Component Distance
Relay (SCDR)
Computer relaying as a field of research was
launched in 1960s. Computers available in those
days were neither fast enough nor inexpensive
enough to warrant a fully computerized protective
relay. However, great strides were made during
1970s and 1980s in developing algorithms for
computer relaying for all power equipment and
systems. One such effort was the development of
a Symmetrical Component Distance Relay for
protecting high voltage transmission lines. The
principal novelty in this relay was that the relaying
algorithm was based upon the measurement of
positive, negative, and zero sequence voltages and
currents at the transmission line terminal. The
advantage of this new algorithm was that it
required processing of only one equation to
determine fault location for all fault types that may
occur on the system. In light of a lack of
computing power in computers of those days, this
was a great advantage.
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 One of the outcomes of this development was the
recursive algorithm for calculating symmetrical
components of voltages and currents, the Symmetrical
Component Discrete Fourier Transform (SCDFT). In
particular, it became apparent that a technique for
measuring positive sequence voltages and currents
very accurately and with measurement response time
of one cycle of the fundamental frequency was of great
interest in other applications, provided that the
measurements could be synchronized across the power
system. This led to the next stage of development:
synchronization of the sampling clocks used in
sampling voltage and current signals.
Synchronization of Sampling Clocks
Consider the problem of measuring the positive
sequence voltages at two substations separated by
many miles. If the data samples used at the two
stations were synchronized precisely, and the absolute
time of the sampling process recorded, then one could
send the measurement to a remote location with the
accompanying time stamp, and by aligning the time
stamps of the measurements obtained from different
stations one would obtain simultaneous positive
sequence measurements every few cycles.
Substation A
At different locations
Phasors on a
.
Substation B
common reference
\ /
Synchronized sampling clock pulses
Figure 1: Synchronized sampling for measuring
phasors with a common axis.
Figure 1 illustrates this principle graphically. The
synchronized clock pulses are used for sampling
voltages and currents of the three phases at the two
substations. The precise time when the samples are
taken is attached as a time-tag to the positive sequence
quantity calculated from these data samples. The data,
when collated at a remote site, provides phasor
measurements on a common reference axis.
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Precise synchronization of sampling clocks
became possible with the advent of GPS satellite
system. Although the precision of synchronization
was not very good in early years of the system, at
present it is possible to achieve synchronization
accuracies of 1 p or better. As one micro-second
corresponds to 0.021' for a 60 Hz signal, such
accuracies are perfect for measuring power
frequency voltages and currents.
Development of Phasor Measurement Unit
(PMU)
Starting from the SCDR algorithm, Virginia
Tech research team developed the first prototype
PMU in 1988. One of the prototype PMUs
installed in the field is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Field installation o f a Virginia Tech
prototype PMU.
At the top of the installation is the stand-alone
GPS clock, followed by the PMU processor,
analog input system, and the phasor display
screen.
Commercial Manufacture of PMUs
Based upon the prototype PMU development at
Virginia Tech, Macrodyne Co. began
manufacturing PMUs as a commercial product.
Their units added several innovations, including
an internal GPS receiver, a 16-bit sigma-delta
analog-to-digital converter for each analog input
channel, and several modem interfaces for remote
access to the PMU. Also developed was a data
concentrator, which collected data from many PMUs,
collated the data by matching the time stamps, and
provided phasor outputs for application software as
needed. A large number of these units have been
installed by many utilities around the world. Another
related development is the IEEE standard 1344
“Synchrophasor” which defines output data format for
the PMUs.
Field Installations of PMUs for Wide Area
Measurements
The initial field installations by the Virginia Tech
team were in three utilities in the US: Bonneville
Power Administration, American Electric Power, and
New York Power Authority. All of these installations
were in pursuance of funded research projects. After
Macrodyne began manufacturing PMUs, the next
series of field installations were of Macrodyne units,
and over the years the total number of units installed
world-wide is probably in hundreds. Other
manufacturers also have begun to manufacture PMUs.
One of the panel members at this session is going to
give a presentation on PMU development in his
company. It is to be expected that the number of
installations around the world will continue to grow as
new applications for these measurements become
available.
Applications Research
Virginia Tech and Cornel1 University led the
research effort in developing applications for phasor
measurements. Initial applications envisaged are those
dealing with state estimation. This is one of the most
natural applications for PMUs. With the direct
measurement of synchronized positive sequence
voltages and currents from the network, the emphasis
shifts to “state measurement” from “state estimation”.
Indeed, with the assured simultaneity of the
measurements and the high data rate possible with
fiber optic communication links, one can, for the first
time consider monitoring the dynamic phenomena on
power systems in real-time. Accurate steady state of
the power system can be determined effortlessly with
this new technology. Indeed, it is possible to use
incomplete observability results with partially
implemented PMU measurement systems.
Other interesting applications have been in using
phasors for feed-back in control systems. It is also
possible to devise adaptive relaying systems which use
phasor measurements to great advantage. Adaptive
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out-of-step relaying is a key example of such an
application.
Some research is also being done in predicting
voltage stability margin with PMU measurements,
and of course angular instability prediction has
already been looked at in the research on out-of-
step relaying.
Another interesting subject of research is in
developing user-friendly displays for system
operators using data provided by PMUs in real
time. One such display is a three-dimensional
display of positive sequence voltage angles at
network buses in the z-dimension, while the x and
y dimensions correspond to the geographical
location of the measurement point.
A hypothetical case of such a display created
based upon assumed network conditions in the US
power grid is shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: A conceptual display of bus voltage
angIe in real time.
Other displays of voltage magnitudes are also
possible, and could be used for alarm when
approaching a voltage collapse.
The subject of real-time phasor measurement
applications is new and exciting. It is to be
expected that in time we will come across many
other innovative applications of this technology.
For Further Reading
[l] A. G. Phadke, M. Ibrahim, T. Hlibka,
“Fundamental Basis for Distance Relaying with
Symmetrical Components”, IEEE Trans. on PAS,
Vol. PAS-96, No. 2, MarchiApril 1977, pp. 635-
646.
[2] A. G. Phadke, J. S. Thorp, M. G . Adamiak, “A
New Measurement technique for tracking voltage
phasors, local system frequency, and rate of change of
frequency" Summer Power Meeting of IEEE, July
1982, San Francisco, Transactions of IEEE on PAS,
May 1983, pp. 1025-1038.
[3] J. S. Thorp, A. G. Phadke, K. Karimi, "Real-Time
Voltage Phasor Measurements for Static State
Estimation", Trans. of IEEE on PAS, Vol. PAS-104,
No. 11, November 1985, pp. 3098-3106.
[4] A. G. Phadke, J. S. Thorp, K. Karimi, "State
Estimation with Phasor Measurements", Trans. of
IEEE on Power Systems, February 1986, pp. 233-241.
[5] J. S . Thorp, A. G. Phadke, S.H. Horowitz, M.
M.Begovic, "Some Applications of Phasor
Measurements to Adaptive Protection", PICA 87,
Montreal, Canada. Trans. PWRS, May 1988, pp. 791-
795.
[6] N. Rostomkolai, A. G. Phadke, W. F. Long, J. S.
Thorp, "An Adaptive Optimal Control Strategy for
Dynamic Stability Enhancement of ACDC Power
Systems", Summer Meeting 1987, San Francisco, CA.
Trans. PWRS, Aug. 1988, pp. 1139-1145.
[7] N. Rostomkolai, A. G. Phadke, "A Predictive
Control Strategy for Improving HVDC Converter
Voltage Profile", Trans. PWRS, Feb. 1989, pp. 37-43.
[SI M. Begovic, A. G. Phadke, "Voltage Stability
Assessment Through Measurement of a Reduced State
Vector", E E E PES Summer Meeting, July 1989, Long
Beach, CA.
[9] A. G. Phadke, "Synchronized Phasor Measurement
in Power Systems", IEEE Computer Applications in
Power, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 10-15, April 1993.
[lo] M. A. Smith, A. G. Phadke, "Synchronized
Phasor Measurement Feedback for Control of FACTS
Devices", accepted for presentation at the TRUC /
Phasor Measurement Conference, Crystal City
Marriott, Arlington, VA, 1995.
[ I l l J. S. Thorp, C. E. Seyler, A. G. Phadke,
"Electromechanical Wave Propagation in Large
ElectricPower Systems," IEEE Circuits and Systems,
June 1977.
[12] A. G. Phadke, J. S. Thorp, K. J. Karimi, "Power
System Monitoring with State Vector Measurement",
2nd International Conference on Power System
Monitoring, University of Durham, U.K., June 1986.
479
[13] A. G. Phadke, J. S. Thorp, K. Karimi,
"Partitioned State Estimation and Bad Data
Processing for Static State Estimators with Phasor
Measurements", No. American Power Conference,
October 1986, Ithaca NY.
[14] A. G. Phadke, J. S. Thorp, "Measurement
Based Control of Power Systems", Proceedings,
IFAC Symposium on Automation and
Instrumentation for Power Plants, Bangalore,
India, December 1986.
[15] N. Rostomkolai, A. G. Phadke, J. S. Thorp,
W. F. Long, "Measurement Based Optimal
Control of High-Voltage ACDC Systems",
Proceedings, CIGRE 1987, Boston, MA.
[16] M. Begovic, A. G. Phadke, "Power System
Emergency Control Near Voltage Instability",
IEEE Conference on Decision and Control,
December 1989, Tampa, Florida.
[17] E. C. Manansala, A. G. Phadke, "Improved
Power System Control Using Phasor
Measurements", IASTED International
Conference on High Technology, Tainan, Taiwan,
R.O.C., March 1991.
[18] L. Mili, T. Baldwin, A. G. Phadke, "Phasor
Measurements for Voltage and Transient Stability
Monitoring and Control", Workshop on
Applications of Advanced Mathematics to Power
Systems, San Francisco, CA, September 4-6,
1991.
[19] R. 0. Burnett, Jr., M. M. Butts, T. W. Cease,
V. Centeno, G. Michel, R. J. Murphy, A. G.
Phadke, "Synchronized Phasor Measurement of a
System Event", presented to IEEE PES Winter
Power Meeting, 1994. (Paper No. 94 WM 178-4-
PWRS)
[20] V. Centeno, J. De La Ree, A. G. Phadke, G.
Michel, J. Murphy, R. Burnett, "Adaptive Out-of-
Step Relaying Using Phasor Measurement
Techniques", IEEE Computer Applications in
Power, Vol. 6, No. 4, October 1993.