Wide-Area Measurement Based Stabilizing Control of Large Power Systems—A Decentralized/Hierarchical Approach

The aim of this paper is to assess the capability of the emerging synchronized phasor measurement technology in improving the overall stability of the Hydro-Quebec’s transmission system through supplementary modulation of voltage regulators. Following a thorough singular value and eigenvalue analysis of the system dynamic interactions, five control sites consisting of four generators and one synchronous condenser are chosen to implement new power system stabilizers with a supplementary input from remote phasor measuring units, geographically spread over nine electrically coherent areas. Since the remote feedback loops are built on top of an existing decentralized control system, this design approach results in a decentralized/hierarchical control architecture with significant advantages in terms of reliability and operational flexibility. A systematic control and measurement pairing yielded four dominant natural loops, each associated with a significant open-loop inter-area oscillatory mode at 0.06, 0.4, 0.7 and 0.95 Hz respectively. These PSSs have a speed sensitive local loop operating in the usual way, and a wide-area measurement based global loop which involves a single differential frequency signal between two suitably selected areas. The tuning and coordination technique for these advanced multiple input signals PSSs is described. Their impacts on the system is assessed using both small-signal analysis and nonlinear simulations in a transient stability program. Our study clearly shows by simulation that wide-area stabilizing controllers have a significant potential in improving the dynamic performance of the Hydro-Quebec’s existing power system, even when implemented on five control sites only.