Wide-Area Stability Controls

Carson W. Taylor
Bonneville Power Administration (retired)
cwtaylor@ieee.org

Wide Area Measurement, Monitoring and Control

in Power Systems
Imperial College, London
1617 March 2006

Power System Stability Controls

Local continuous feedback controls:
Generator AVR/PSS, turbine governor
SVC, other power electronic devices

Wide-area stability controls:

Event-based or response (feedback) based
Continuous or discontinuous
Angle stability or long-term voltage stability

Power System Stability Controls

Local and Wide-Area
Power System
Disturbances

switch capacitor/reactor banks

direct
detection
(SPS)

trip generators/loads

Power
System
Dynamics

Continuous
Feedback
Controls
(generators)

Discontinuous
Controls

response detection
(WACS)
3

Event-Based Wide-Area Stability Controls

Emergency controls: Special Protection Systems
(SPS)/Remedial Action Schemes (RAS)
Direct detection of pre-selected outages:
Signal to central logic, then signal to power plant or
substation for action
Generator/load tripping, reactive power compensation
switching

Many schemes in service, fast and reliable

Complex: e.g., BPA 24/7 RAS dispatcher for arming
and supervision
Expensive (high redundancy required)
Discontinuous control for pre-determined outages
only

BPA Remedial Action Schemes (RAS)

Many schemes, many added after 8/10
Line loss detection logic on most 500-kV lines
Generator tripping and/or 500-kV series/shunt
capacitor and reactor bank switching for single
line, 2 line, 3 line, 4 line outage combinations
Controlled islanding for Pacific ac intertie outage:
For outage signals sent to Colorado/New Mexico/Utah/
Arizona to separate into north and south islands

PLC binary logic computers, including fault tolerant

two out three voting computers, redundant at two
control centers:
Transfer trip signals from line loss logic to control
centers, and from control centers to power plants and
substations

Western North
American
Interconnection
6

Example RAS Logic (one of many sheets)

Wide-Area Response-Based Discontinuous

Controls
BPA has one scheme for transient stability control
based on voltage magnitude measurements at a
OregonCalifornia border substation with transfer
trip signals to nearby substations for series
capacitor and shunt capacitor/reactor switching:
Undervoltage relays and timers

Wide-Area stability and voltage Control System

(WACS) described later

Wide-Area Response-Based Discontinuous

Controls for Long-Term Voltage Stability
Utilities have implemented wide-area response
based controls for voltage stability:

Combination of voltage magnitudes and generator

reactive power or overexcitation limiter outputs at
several locations
Transfer trip or SCADA signals and binary logic
Certain load level or generator MW output may be
required
Load tripping and capacitor/reactor bank switching
More sensitive and intelligent than local undervoltage
load shedding

BC Hydro, Entergy, TEPCO, Sydkraft,

9

Entergy Load Shedding in East Texas [1,2]

10
Source: Sharma Kolluri

Discontinuous Wide-Area Stability Controls

(WACS)
Response-based to stabilize large disturbances:
First swing stabilization
Reduce stress for improved damping
Establish post-disturbance equilibrium

Generator/load tripping, series capacitor and

shunt capacitor/reactor bank switching
Single switching action, or
True feedbackobserve response, take action,
observe effect, take further action if necessary
SAFER than continuous control
11

Continuous Wide-Area Stability Controls

BPA Pacific HVDC intertie early example [3,4]:

Remote input signal from ac intertie, multiple outputs

Analog sensors, communications, controller
Digital control proposed but not accepted by management
In service 1976 late 1980s

Design based on system transfer function

measurement (bode plots) rather than simulation:

AC intertie power or current used for input; for two area

system, signal is proportional to rotor angle difference
Current transducer was diode three-phase bridge rectifier
with 360 Hz notch filter and 40 Hz low pass filtersvery
simple and fast!
Later work indicated ac intertie apparent resistance less
prone to NMP behavior [7]
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Negatively Damped Oscillation, 2 August 1974

POWER
IN MW
AC Intertie
power
- MW

1800

1700

1600

1500

jfh

1400
0

20

40

60

- seconds
TIMETime
IN SECONDS

80

100

120

13

Pacific HVDC Intertie Modulation

14

Pacific HVDC Intertie Modulation

60-Hz Notch

120-Hz Notch

Low pass

15

Pacific HVDC Intertie

Modulation

Western North
American
Interconnection
16

Continuous Wide-Area Stability Controls

Difficult and DANGEROUS:
Especially for HVDC, TCSC, SVC
Sensor speed versus filtering, including anti-aliasing filtering
Latencies (pure time delays) in digital sensors, communication,
and control unlimited phase lag for high frequencies

17

Signal Delay - PMU to Controller (Ken Martin)

Combined communications time delay: PMU to PDC
to PDC
Source: Ken Martin
PDC adds 5-6 ms
Delay - Slat/BE230 PMUs

Delay - Slatt PMU, sample 1300-1400

59

25.5

58

25

57

24.5

56
Millliseconds

Milliseconds

24
55
54

23.5
23

53
22.5

52

22

51
50

21.5
0

1000

2000

3000

4000
5000
Data Points

6000

7000

Async interface to Sonet

53 ms overall

8000

9000

10

20

30

40

50
60
Data Points

70

80

90

Direct async into Sonet

18
24 ms overall

100

Operating Environment for Feedback Control

external inputs uE(t)

unmeasured response y'(t)

load noise uL(t)

POWER

input u(t)

SYSTEM

nonlinear
interactions
nonlinear response
linear response

measured response y(t)

extraneous
inputs

Sensors
&
Transducers

measurement
noise

ACTUATOR

actuator noise
command
CONTROL
LAW
Source: John Hauer

controller input ym(t)

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Impediments to Wide-Area Damping Control

(Dr. John Hauer)
Dynamics mimicking interarea oscillations

RMS sensor processing artifacts

Network resonances and harmonics, hydraulic oscillations

Abrupt changes in system structure

Intermittent nonminimum-phase behavior
Sparse monitoring of controller effects
Models not sufficiently realistic
High potential for adverse controller interactions

20

Western North America Oscillatory Dynamics

SUNDANCE
MICA
KEMANO

GRAND
COULEE
COLSTRIP

SHASTA

HOOVER
MEAD

FOUR
CORNERS

PALO
VERDE

Major interaction path

jfh
MEXICO

"Index" generator

Key Interactions & Index Machines for

Western Power System Dynamics

Source: John Hauer

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Digital Sensors/Communications in WideArea Control (Hauer)

Communication delays (latencies) range from 20 to
100 ms
PMU, controller, output communications latencies?
Pure time delays can be lethal source of instability
in feedback controls:
Delay of 50 ms causes 180 of phase lag at 10 Hz, 45 at
2.5 Hz
45 of uncompensated lag annihilates the 45 of phase
margin typically required in feedback control.
Compensate lag or reduce controller bandwidth (and
performance)
Latency cannot be exactly compensated

General issue: Digital networks suitable for

feedback control?

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On the other hand

Response-Based Wide-Area Stability Controls

Facilitated by IT:

Digital sensors, communications, controllers

Fiber optic communications

Greater observability and controllability

Time delays/latencies pose challenges:

But control feasible for interarea oscillations

Examplelow frequency mode with 3 second period:

Need first swing stabilization

Impulse (short circuit) response peak at 0.75 second
Step (line/generator outage) response peak at 1.5 second
50 ms latency causes 6 lag at 0.33 Hz

WACS examples later

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Step Response of Second Order System

25

Wide-Area Continuous Stability Controls

Several organizations have investigated wide-area
controls: universities, ABB, Hydro Quebec, .

Wide-area PSS (power system stabilizer)

PSS applied to generators, synchronous condensers, SVCs,
TCSCs, etc.

Work of Innocent Kamwa and colleagues at Hydro

Quebec notable [5,6]:

Overall, wide-area control is consistently three to 20

times more efficient technically than the competing local
control [6]
More efficient implies lower gain needed than for local
control
Voltage phase angles from PMUs used as inputs
Fuzzy logic PSS with inputs , d/dt
26

Future of Digital Controls

Many digital controls based on traditional
continuous analog control concepts
Discontinuous controls have advantages:

Control deadband, or detection of need for control

Control mode shifting, e.g., small signal damping mode
versus large signal transient stability stabilization mode
PLL techniques [8]
Walk before run

Heuristics (HNN) versus theoretical approaches:

Heuristic approaches for large-scale, large disturbance,

nonlinear systems?
Complementary approaches including AI
27

References
1.
2.

3.
4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

S. Kolluri and T. He, Design and Operating Experience with Fast Acting Load Shedding Scheme in the
Entergy System to Prevent Voltage Collapse, Proceedings of IEEE/PES 2004 General Meeting.
S. Kolluri, K. Tinnium and M. Stephens, Design and Operating Experience with Fast Acting Load
Shedding Scheme in the Entergy System to Prevent Voltage Collapse, Proceedings of IEEE/PES 2000
Winter Meeting.
R. L. Cresap, D. N. Scott, W. A. Mittelstadt, and C. W. Taylor, Damping of Pacific AC Intertie Oscillations
via Modulation of the Parallel Pacific HVDC Intertie, CIGRE 14-05, 1978.
R. L. Cresap, D. N. Scott, W. A. Mittelstadt, and C. W. Taylor, Operating Experience with Modulation of
the Pacific HVDC Intertie, IEEE Transactions on Power Apparatus and Systems, Vol. PAS-98, pp. 1053
1059, July/August 1978.
I. Kamwa, R. Grondin, and Y. Hebert, Wide-area measurement based stabilizing control of large power
systems-a decentralized/hierarchical approach, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, Vol. 16, No. 1,
pp. 136153, February 2001.
I. Kamwa, A. Heniche, G. Trudel, M. Dobrescu, R. Grondin, and D. Lefebvre, Assessing the Technical
Value of FACTS-Based Wide-Area Damping Control Loops, Proceedings of IEEE/PES 2005 General
Meeting.
J. F. Hauer, Reactive Power Control as a Means for Enhanced Interarea Damping in the Western U.S.
Power Systema Frequency-Domain Perspective Considering Robustness Needs, Application of Static
Var Systems for System Dynamic Performance, IEEE/PES 87TH0187-5-PWR.
C. Gama, Brazilian NorthSouth Interconnection Control Application and Operating Experience with a
TCSC, Proceedings of 1999 IEEE/PES Summer Meeting, July 1999.

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Questions?

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