Impacts of Power Grid Frequency Deviation on Time Error of Synchronous Electric Clock and Worldwide Power System Practices on Time Error Correction

Synchronous electric clocks utilize power grid frequency as their timing reference. Power grid frequency deviation away from its nominal value results in synchronous electric clocks running fast or running slow (also known as the time error). In this article, statistical analysis on time error of synchronous electric clocks around the world is firstly presented using the power grid frequency measurements recorded by the wide-area frequency monitoring network FNET/GridEye. Then, the time error correction (TEC) process provided by electric utilities is analyzed and the worldwide TEC practice is investigated. Eventually, regions of the world where electric utilities provide TEC service are differentiated from those without TEC services. Analytical results demonstrate that the average time error of synchronous electric clocks in North America seems to be less than five seconds, and it has not changed very much over the past few years. On the other hand, the identification results present that up to the end of 2016, many electric utilities around the world, especially in North America and Europe, provided the TEC service to periodically remove the accumulative time error of synchronous electric clocks.