The Autonomous Stress Indicator for Remotely Monitoring Power System State and Watching for Potential Instability

The proposed Autonomous Stress Indicator (ASI) is a device that monitors the contents of the protection relays on a suspect weak power system bus and generates a performance level related to the degree of system performance degradation or instability. This gives the system operators some time (minutes) to take corrective action. In a given operating area there would not likely be a need for an ASI on every bus. Note that the ASI does not trip any breakers; it is an INFORMATION ONLY device. An important feature is that the system operator can subsequently interrogate the ASI to determine the factor(s) that led to the performance level that has been initially annunciated, thereby leading to a course of action. This paper traces the development of the ASI which is an ongoing project. The ASI could be also described as a stress-alert device whose function is to alert the System Operator of a stressful condition at its location. The characteristics (or essential qualities) of this device are autonomy, selectivity, accuracy and intelligence. These will fulfill the requirements of the recommendation of the Canada –US Task Force in the August 2003 system collapse. Preliminary tests on the IEEE 39-bus model indicate that the concept has merit and development work is in progress. While the ASI can be applied to all power system operating conditions, its principal application is to the degraded state of the system where the System Operator must act to restore the system to the secure state before it migrates to a stage of collapse. The work of ASI actually begins with the Areas of Vulnerability and ends with the Predictive Module as described in detail in this paper. An application example of a degraded system using the IEEE 39-bus system is included.