Austrian Utility Installs Wide Area Monitoring System

Dec 18, 2006 11:12 PM

Austria is the latest country to monitor the stability of its power transmission network
with an ABB wide area monitoring system (WAMS), an advanced early warning
technology for power grids that helps operators prevent system instabilities and
overloads, as well as cascade tripping that leads to power blackouts.
WAMS technology solves one of the power industrys most pressing problems: how to
ensure grid reliability by detecting and counteracting the first signs of grid instability. The
Austrian utility, Verbund-Austrian Power Grid (APG), installed a new monitoring system
from ABB to complement three recently commissioned phase-shifting transformers that
together optimize transmission over main power corridors.
Since the spring of 2006, ABBs PSGuard 850 WAMS has overseen the power flow along a
crucial and heavily loaded transmission corridor between the cities of Vienna and Ternitz,
connecting northeastern and southern Austria.
The corridor is operated by APG, which controls a power network consisting of about 50
switching and substations, and 6500 km of lines.
The problem is this much of the 1900 MW of surplus power produced in northeastern
Austria is transferred to the south of the country, where there is a deficit of 1400 MW. To
meet the heavy demand for power in the south, surplus electricity is transmitted over
three 220 kV power lines that have a total capacity of 1200 MW.
Increased congestion restricts the flow of electricity and
threatens the security of supply. Compounding the
congestion is the gradual addition of another 1000 MW
of electricity from wind generation in the northeast, as
well as the closure of coal-fired power plants in the
south, which is creating even greater demand for power
from the north.
The solution that stabilizes and protects the corridor is
an intelligent combination of ABBs PSGuard monitoring
system with phasor measurement units (PMUs) and three phase-shifting transformers
installed at critical nodes in the network.

With ABB's PSGuard WAMS, operators can

monitor their power network very precisely.

These ABB transformers in three of APG's substations protect the power lines by
regulating the power flow and by preventing the loss of lines through physical
overloading.
Since the spring, PSGuard has monitored loading of the 220 kV double lines, and in the
future will also coordinate the operation of all three phase-shifting transformers for
maximum performance. Line over- and underloads can be balanced, and losses caused
by uncoordinated loop flows (inadvertent power losses as electricity is transmitted
through the network) can also be minimized.
With these technologies, APG can get the most use out of its existing transmission
capacities, and at the same time significantly reduce the risk of a blackout caused by
overloaded lines. At the beginning of December 2006, all three transformers and the
monitoring system were jointly and successfully commissioned. An additional order for
the integration of the PSGuard system with the network control system has already been
awarded by APG.

Satellite-synchronized measurements
Austrian Power Grids PSGuard employs applications like phase angle monitoring (PAM),
which scrutinizes network stresses caused by heavily loaded lines, and line thermal
monitoring (LTM), which determines average line temperature and temperature changes.
Measurements are taken with ABB PMUs measuring devices that are installed at critical
nodes in the power network and use a GPS satellite signal to time-synchronize voltage
and current readings as they are taken from their points of origin.
Data can be streamed into a control center from far-flung points in the grid, where it is
evaluated to give grid operators a precise picture of what is happening in their system,
online. They can also finally see what is happening beyond their own control area an
advance over traditional monitoring and protection methods.
An effective solution
It means they can react swiftly and effectively when confronted with sudden interruptions
or bottlenecks in the power flow, and win time to prevent the spread of disturbances that
can potentially bring down the entire network.
The information, especially on the load flow and average temperature progression on the
double lines will aid our operational staff in fully utilizing their transmission capacity and
maintaining integrity at the same time, said Herbert Erven, head of secondary systems
at APG.

A New Dimension In Grid Monitoring

Feb 1, 2007 12:00 PM
By Walter Sattinger, Rudolf Baumann and Philippe Rothermann, swissgrid ag

The continual expansion of the meshed interconnected operation within the Central
European System's Union for the Coordination of Transmission Electricity (UCTE) has
intensified the need to see or monitor the transmission system beyond one's own
national boundary to fully understand the reasons for fast power-flow changes at certain
times.
Wide-area monitoring (WAM) uses high-resolution measurements synchronized by GPS
timing. The measurements from remotely located substations create a comprehensive
system overview. Currently, swissgrid ag (Laufenburg, Switzerland) has implemented a
power oscillation monitoring (POM) system that is under development in a test operation.
The POM makes it possible to detect the excitation of one of the two major interarea
oscillation modes that exist in the UCTE power system.
At the end of January 2006, for example, schedule changes exceeding 5 GW between
individual systems were noted. These power changes resulted in frequency deviations of
more than 0.15 Hz for several minutes (Fig. 1) because of inaccurate ramping. With the
frequency deviations shown, inadvertent power flows in the whole system could occur,
which subsequently may cause cascaded events.
WIDE-AREA MEASUREMENTS
WAM is based on at least once per cycle high-resolution measurements synchronized by
GPS timing signals. By using reliable telecommunication channels, they can be computed
and displayed in real time. These measurements from remotely located substations allow

for the creation of a detailed system overview. Also, post processing of these signals
opens the door to a new dimension of wide-area system control and protection.
This is in stark contrast to previous methods of power system monitoring, which was
performed with SCADA systems that deliver measurements or estimated values in 5- to
20-second intervals. A steady-state snapshot of the transmission system gives an
overview of topology, power flows, voltage profiles and power-frequency controller
operation. The information displayed covers the complete national operation area and
only partial sections of the neighboring systems.
The use of WAM measurements enables system dynamic behavior to be permanently
monitored and, when coupled with smart computations algorithms, an early-warning
system against dangerous system operation is established. This practice started in 2003
in Switzerland, which occupies a strategic position in the UCTE, and is now the subject of
the latest system and functionality expansion.
CORRIDOR MONITORING
Switzerland has a power-transfer load through the Swiss transmission system that is
equivalent in magnitude to the system load itself. Thus, corridor monitoring is a very
important task. Phase measurement units (PMUs) enable the exact measurement of
voltage phase difference along the corridor. Based on only two measurements, the
system loading and the complete topology between the two substations can be
monitored. Figure 2 shows the complete signal chain from the feeder up to the SCADA
system.
Data communication between the substation and the data concentrator consists only of
positive sequence phasor values for current, voltage and the determined frequency. Each
measurement package has an individual time stamp. For the communication itself,
standardized protocols are used. The acquired data are stored in an OPC database with a
time resolution of 100 msec.
Dedicated information is piped from the data concentrator to the control room. This
information consists of either alarms or other calculated values from the different
permanent running applications. The main challenge is to extract important information
from analyzing electromechanical dynamics of the whole system and send corresponding
alarms to the control-room operators. In addition, the planning departments could
benefit from calibrating their dynamic models on exports of synchronized high-resolution
measurements on different feeders.
The impact of events far from the well-monitored system is shown in Fig. 3. In the event
of losing a section of the transmission system during the Italian import of several
thousand megawatts through the systems of Slovenia, Switzerland and France, an
automatic higher loading of the rest of the interconnection lines will occur. In this
particular mode of operation, more than an additional 500 MW will flow through the Swiss
system on the four main 380-kV north-south transmission lines. This additional load flow,
about 100 MW for each line, correlates with a stepwise increase of the voltage phaseangle difference from the northern to the southern system border of 2.5 degrees.
STABILITY MONITORING
The highly interconnected UCTE power system has reached a critical size. Poorly damped
interarea oscillations recorded in 2005 have shown that dynamic system behavior has to
be carefully observed to prevent unfavorable system situations. Therefore, the
measurements available from the Swiss data concentrator were used for the extraction of
dynamic system information together with many other recordings on the complete UCTE
power system. Figure 4 gives an overview of the current synchronous interconnected

system and the location of the on-line connected PMUs. For Switzerland, these are
positioned in Bassecourt Substation on the northwest border, Mettlen Substation in the
center of the transmission system, and Lavorgo, Soazza and Robbia substations on the
southern border. Based on bilateral agreements with ELES (Slovenia) and HTSO (Greece),
two other substations at Divaca and Ag. Stanfos are equipped to complete the system.
The first successful application of the on-line dynamic system monitoring was performed
during the critical phase of the resynchronization of the first and second UCTE zones on
Oct. 10, 2004. At that time, a permanent modem link from Zagreb (Croatia) to
Laufenburg (Switzerland) enabled the resynchronization team to be sure that, during the
weak interconnection time window, no instabilities occurred.
However, after this latest extension step of the UCTE, poorly damped interarea
oscillations were repeated. Using three different input signals frequency, voltage
phase-angle difference and active power the system damping parameters were
permanently extracted and recorded (Fig. 5).
WAM enables system operators to permanently dispose of stability indices, in order to
receive warning signals in the case of poor system damping. Secondly, by permanently
recording stability indices, a correlation between dangerous operating conditions and
related system loading or topology configuration can be deduced.
POWER OSCILLATION MONITORING
As mentioned previously, swissgrid ag's POM can detect the excitation of one of the two
major interarea oscillation modes existent in the UCTE power system. The most visible is
the east-west mode reflected by active power swings in the east-west direction that can
be measured on the tie lines connecting areas on this axis or the frequency at the
Eastern system margin. As input for recording this mode, the comparison between the
frequency in Switzerland and Greece is used. Similar results can be obtained by using the
voltage phase-angle difference between Greece and Switzerland. The second mode,
which reflects the north-south interarea oscillation, is also monitored by swissgrid ag by
using, as input, the active power flows of two 380-kV tie lines oriented in the north-south
direction as part of the import corridor from the North to Italy.
The timely high-resolution measurements (every 100 msec is one measurement set) are
subsequently processed in such a way that as a result of an on-line parameter estimation
together with a modal analysis, three main parameters describing the system damping
are calculated and stored in the measurement database: damping factor, oscillation
amplitude and oscillation frequency. The most recent interarea oscillation observed in the
UCTE power system is shown in Fig. 6 and the corresponding oscillation monitoring tool
output is presented in Fig. 7.
By using both indices, namely the damping factor and the oscillation amplitude, together
with a timer allows creation of a reliable oscillation alarm, which triggers acquiring
additional recordings or for performing system topology improvements. Currently, this
signal is used only for monitoring purposes, but in the future it may be integrated in
special protection schemes or enhanced control loops.
THE OUTLOOK
Rapid and frequent changes of power-flow patterns have to be managed by transmission
system operators with the help of enhanced system monitoring tools. One possible
solution is a WAM approach in order to enable control-room operators to react faster. A
dedicated aggregation of global information of the system creates intelligent alarms
containing comprehensive information related to highly meshed systems. Based on post-

processing of measurements, coordinated actions can be initiated in order to prevent

cascaded events.
Current developments in data acquisition, reliable and fast telecommunication systems
combined with increased computation power enables power engineers to implement new
comprehensive monitoring and control schemes, which increase power system security
with faster reaction. However, the most challenging process will be to combine the
existing SCADA/EMS systems with the latest modern techniques to create tools for the
control of the increasing interconnected power systems throughout the world.
Initially, the WAM approach is used as a support for decisions, but after further
improvements in a second step, the same technology has to be integrated into an
automatic control system or into new special protection schemes. As PMU information is
received from the most important substations, these measurements also represent the
basis of an emergency backup system and might be used correspondingly. In addition,
these measurements might be used as a permanent functionality quality check for the
on-line state estimator and other EMS functions.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The current system was developed in close cooperation with ABB, the manufacturer of
the PMUs and related software packages. The authors wish to acknowledge and thank the
ABB project team led by Dr. Joachim Bertsch.

Ing. Walter Sattinger earned his electrical engineering degree from the University of
Stuttgart in 1988 and his Doktor-Ingenieur PhD degree from the same university in
1995, after which he joined DigSILENT (Germany) as a consulting engineer. In 2003,
Sattinger moved to ETRANS Ltd., now named swissgrid ag, where he works in the
System Planning and Studies department as a power system analysis expert. He serves
as the project engineer on the interface between system planning and system operation.
His specific responsibilities include dynamic system studies, wide-area monitoring and
line thermal monitoring. He is a member of various UCTE and CIGR working groups,
task forces and technical committees. walter.sattinger@swissgrid.ch
Rudolf Baumann has almost three decades of experience in network control, and
communication and information technology. He started his career with Brown Boveri &
Co. as a development engineer commissioning network control systems around the world
before leading the company's engineering group for SCADA systems. Baumann worked
for Elektrizitts-Gesellschaft Laufenburg, leading the Information Technology department
from 1986 to 1999 prior to joining ETRANS AG in 2000. At ETRANS AG, now named
swissgrid ag, he is responsible for overall project management, strategic and business
development, and development of the Swiss market system. Since June 2005, Baumann
has
been
responsible
for
operations
at
swissgrid
ag
and
COO.
rudolf.baumann@swissgrid.ch
Philippe Rothermann earned his electrical engineering degree from the University of
Applied Science of Friburg in 2004 and joined ETRANS, now named swissgrid ag, in 2005.
As a power system analysis expert, he is a member of the System Planning and Studies
department, where he works on dynamic system studies, wide-area monitoring, line
thermal monitoring and load flow optimization. Philippe.Rothermann@swissgrid.ch

The Bulk Power Grid Seeks Intelligent Operation

Jan 2, 2007 4:41 PM
by Rick Bush, Editorial Director, and Gene Wolf, Contributing Editor

Much of the developed worlds transmission grid is approaching the end of its design life
and is subject to headline-grabbing failures. At the same time, the industrys technical
workforce is poised for retirement. These people built, operated and maintained the
largest and most complex machine the world has yet to see. Regrettably, they will take
with them intimate knowledge of exactly how it operates. Because so many utilities have
underinvested in any type of succession plan, there is a loss in situational awareness of
the power grid system. Combine this with the increasing demand for power, changing
regulation and increasingly complex interconnections, and the stage has been set for
more and bigger blackouts.
Fortunately, the development of technology that could automate, manipulate and monitor
basic equipment, such as switches, capacitors and relays, began in the late 1980s. This
technology is reaching the stage of deployment at a time when it will be a major player in
the solution.
The
technology
is
a
highly
intelligent
combination
of
high-speed
communications,information technology and process competency. Together, it forms a
fast and reliable decision-making system to predict, prevent and mitigate disturbances.
Phasor Monitoring
Many years ago, Bonneville Power Authority (BPA) developed a monitoring system called
the phasor measurement unit (PMU). It monitors voltage and current phase angles,
which can be used to predict developing instability. Initially, the Western Electric
Coordinating Council (WECC) and EPRI deployed the PMU as a real-time wide-area
monitoring system (WAMS) with 21 PMUs at six utilities. Last year, there were 60 PMUs
installed on eight utility systems with phasor data concentrators at control centers
belonging to WECC members.
China started deploying WAMSs in 2002. Dr. Christian Rehtanz, ABB China vice president
and director of corporate research, says that China is currently doing some of the most
advanced work in this field developing applications to interpret basic PMU data. Today,
China has installed 10 central computers with 200 to 300 PMUs in five regional and five
provincial power systems. According to Rehtanz, the challenge facing researchers is to
develop methods to analyze the millions of data points from the WAMS. The Eastern
Interconnection Phasor Project (EIPP) is another PMU system that has deployed about 75
PMUs. EIPP is a Department of Energy (DOE) and Consortium for Electric Reliability
Technology Solutions (CERTS) initiative that started in October 2003.
The 2003 blackout
The August 2003 blackout affected 10 million people in Canada and 40 million people in
northeastern United States. Outage-related financial losses were estimated at
approximately US$6 billion.
Robert Cummings, director of events analysis and information exchange for the North
American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), reviewed some PMUs and other data from
just prior to and during the August 2003 outage. Bus frequencies showed a fluctuation,
and phase angles seen in Ohio and Michigan began to diverge from each other hours
before the outage. He found that the phase angles continued to diverge from each other,
indicating that stress was building on the interconnection.

Stability Management
One problem facing transmission system operators is system stability. Power transfers
could be increased if stability was not a limiting condition. Psymetrix Ltd. has developed
an oscillatory stability management system called the StormMinder. Dr. Douglas Wilson
says that the StormMinder system uses a technology that monitors the small
perturbations that are always on the power system. The operator is provided with realtime displays and alarms for system damping. According to Wilson, Psymetrix has
installed its system on the Australian network. In 2004, the StormMinder system
identified severe oscillations and their locations on the Australia network. Because
operators were able to use this information, a serious blackout was prevented. The
Psymetrix system has also been installed in Manitoba, Canada.
After some serious power interruptions in Europe and North America, AREVA T&D
working with a group of utilities (American Electric Power [AEP], Northeast Utilities,
Ameren, TVA, Entergy and First Energy) developed a software system called eterravision to help system operators anticipate and avoid problems that could lead to
brownouts and blackouts. The software is a decision-support system for the control
center. It takes the accumulation of real-time data from supervisory control and data
acquisition systems, energy management systems and WAMS, giving the operator a
visualization of the systems, talk about being user friendly. The operator can develop
dynamic dashboard displays, on the fly, of exactly the type of information needed for the
conditions. They have the vital signs of the systems at their fingertips. In effect, eterravision is a platform and methodology to develop applications that enhance
situational awareness in the control center.
AREVA T&D and its utility partners continued to ask what if in the development of eterravision and have outlined the basics for an e-terra suite. Why not have various
decision-making capabilities built into the real-time visualization software? The suite
combines elements of a browser for monitoring the grid behavior, an archive to store and
analyze historical information, a modeler for energy management, a security
environment for cyber protection, a centralized alarm management system, and
substation automation to monitor, control and protect system operation.
Substation Intelligence
Series capacitors are another way to increase the power flow down a transmission line,
but they have some problems associated with them. As compensation levels are
increased, subsynchronous resonance (SSR) and possible damage to generation
resources become a problem. Add some intelligent power electronics in the form of
thyristor controls, and the system operator doesnt have to monitor for SSR in addition to
the other system properties. SSR has gone away. Some call the thyristor-controlled
series capacitor a stealth capacitor.
BPA, EPRI and GE Energy pioneered this technology in the early 1990s with the Slatt
Substation thyristor-controlled series capacitor installation where, like capacitors,
transformers, breakers, switches and other substation devices are not considered
intelligent by themselves. But add monitors and the switchyard becomes smart. Today,
however, there is a wide selection of intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) available for
almost every piece of substation equipment. Southern States, LLC has developed a
current monitoring device that clamps on stands below the substation bus. It uses
electromagnetic fields to sense voltage and current levels without being physically placed
in the circuit, making it handy to monitor in extremely tight spaces. ABB, GE Energy,
AREVA and Siemens have developed systems to replace the labor-intensive station
checks with real-time monitoring of station equipment and circuits.
Transformers can be smarter

The typical large power transformer is a $3 million to $5 million investment for a U.S.
utility, and replacing it takes about two to three years. Yet few utilities have real-time
monitoring systems installed on these critical pieces of equipment. It isnt expensive to
install, and transformer-monitoring equipment offers new advances in its data-collection
abilities. Real-time monitoring of oil for gas chromatography is available, as is
temperature detection for hot spots, oil temperatures, load tap changer temperatures
and cooling efficiencies.
The real trick is converting the data into usable information. This information is important
to utilities because it allows them to schedule work based on the condition of the
equipment rather than basing maintenance on the calendar. The system operator can
load transformers and receive real-time feedback about the actual condition of the
transformer rather than an operating procedure based on conservative guesswork by an
engineer sitting miles away from the actual unit.
GE Energy, Siemens/Serveron, ABB, Morgan Shaffer, Dynamic Ratings and Schweitzer
are a few of the manufacturers developing complete monitoring systems to give
operations and maintenance personnel a real understanding of how the equipment in the
substation is performing and the true conditions under which they are operating.
Power Electronics
Once the intelligence is in place to investigate loop flows, as well as resonance and lowfrequency oscillations, tools are needed to counteract that instability. Otherwise, utilities
are reduced to tripping generation and shedding load. Flexible AC Transmission System
(FACTS), partially funded by EPRI and developed by GE Energy, Siemens, ABB, Mitsubishi
and AREVA, meets these requirements with devices that make it possible to counteract
electrical disturbances before they impact the end user, such as the phenomenon of
voltage fluctuations, flicker and voltage sags. Examples include:

Super VAR. Developed by Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and American

Superconductor Corp., this high-temperature superconducting synchronous
condenser corrects voltage sag immediately. It is rated at 10 MVAR. The first
Super VAR went into service in 2005 on the TVA system. Since then, TVA has
purchased five of the units.
SVC light. ABB has developed a STATCOM device (static compensator) using
voltage-source converter technology and insulated gate bipolar transistor
technology to control reactive power.
Advanced phase-shifting transformer. GE Energy developed the Variable
Frequency Transformer (VFT), a continuous phase-shifting transformer based on
rotating machine technology. It also has one power grid connected to the rotor
and the other grid to the stator. In effect, it is a rotating machine that operates
like a converter station, connecting two asynchronous systems without the hassle
of a converter station. There are no harmonic filters and the control system uses
programmable logic controllers based on ladder logic. It can be replaced easily
when control technology needs to be upgraded, making it a true plug-and-play
device relying on tested technology packaged for the 21 st century. The first VFT
was installed on the Hydro Quebec system. A second VFT is under construction on
the AEP system between Texas and Mexico.
High-voltage direct current. This technology continues to advance with the
capacitor commutated converter for connection of weak networks. The voltagesource converter enables the connection to passive networks (no generation) and
provides active and reactive power control while maintaining power quality.

The pieces needed to add intelligence to the bulk transmission system already exist. The
electromechanical power system of the last millennium must be replaced. Intelligent

technology can transform it into an intelligent power system. The intelligent bulk
transmission grid is an ambitious undertaking whose time has come.
Increasing Grid Capacity with Superconducting Cable
High-temperature superconductors (HTSs) are now a reality. In August 2006, American
Electric Power (AEP) has installed a 200-m (656-ft) HTS cable designed and
manufactured by Ultera (a joint venture of Southwire and nkt cables) at its Bixby
Substation. The Triax cable is energized at 13.2 kV and rated 3 kA and 69 MVA and
incorporates all three phases of a power line through a single cable. This design reduces
space requirements and uses one-half the quantity of superconducting materials.
Sumitomo, SuperPower Inc., the BOC Group and National Grid installed the worlds first
in-grid HTS 350-m (1148-ft), 34.5-kV underground cable this year in Albany, New York.
American Superconductor Corp. started production of HTS cable in 2005. The cable is
able to carry 150 times the current as copper cable of the same dimensions. The U.S.
Department of Energy has been working with manufacturers to develop the next
generation of HTS 2G. In addition, Rockwell Automation and SuperPower Inc. are working
on this technology.