IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 30, NO.
2, MARCH 2015
Inertia Estimation of the GB Power
System Using Synchrophasor Measurements
Phillip M. Ashton, Student Member, IEEE, Christopher S. Saunders, Member, IEEE,
Gareth A. Taylor, Senior Member, IEEE, Alex M. Carter, and Martin E. Bradley
AbstractA novel procedure for estimating the total inertia of
the Great Britain (GB) power system is presented. Following an
instantaneous in-feed loss, regional variations in the estimate of in-
ertia are obtained from measured frequency transients using in-
stalled synchronised phasor measurement units (PMUs). A method
is proposed to rst detect a suitable event for analysis, and then
lter the measured transients in order to obtain a reliable estimate
of inertia for a given region of the GB network. The total inertia
for the whole system is then calculated as a summation, with an es-
timate also provided as to the contribution to inertia from residual
sources, namely synchronously connected demand and embedded
generation. The approach is rst demonstrated on the full dynamic
model of the GB transmission system, before results are presented
from analyzing the impact of a number of instantaneous transmis-
sion in-feed loss events using phase-angle data provided by PMUs
from the GB transmission network and also devices installed at the
domestic supply at 4 GB universities.
Index TermsFrequency response, inertia, phasor measure-
ment unit (PMU), power system dynamic stability, synchrophasor,
wide area monitoring system (WAMS).
I. INTRODUCTION
I N line with the U.K. and European parliaments' legislation
on CO reduction, the generation pattern in Great Britain
(GB) is rapidly evolving. The GB system is required to accom-
modate an increasing volume of renewable energy, predomi-
nantly in the form of offshore wind, asynchronously connecting
to the periphery of the transmission system. This displacement
of traditional thermal generation is leading to a signicant re-
duction in system inertia, thus making the task of system oper-
ation more challenging.
The inevitable shift towards a more dynamic system com-
pounds the existing issues of calculating generator response and
reserve requirements, which traditionally assume that system
inertia varies linearly with demand. With demand being met
by a growing percentage of asynchronous generation, such as
renewables and HVDC interconnectors, this assumption is be-
coming increasingly invalid. Frequency services are becoming
more complicated and less predictable throughout the day,
Manuscript received November 09, 2013; revised April 21, 2014; accepted
June 17, 2014. Date of publication July 14, 2014; date of current version Feb-
ruary 17, 2015. Paper no. TPWRS-01442-2013.
P. M. Ashton and G. A. Taylor are with Brunel University, London, U.K.
C. S. Saunders is with Brunel University, Brunel Institute of Power Systems,
Uxbridge, U.K. (e-mail: cssaunders@ieee.org; cssaunders@gmail.com).
A. M. Carter and M. E. Bradley are with National Grid U.K., Wokingham,
U.K.
Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TPWRS.2014.2333776
0885-8950 2014 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
701
forcing reassessment of generation patterns and limitations on
single circuit risks, making it more difcult to maintain security
for all credible contingencies.
It is therefore necessary to gain an improved understanding
of both the inertial frequency response of the power system and
the security of the system in near to real-time. This will ensure
the impact of incidents to specic areas of the network is un-
derstood, facilitating more economically efcient operation of
the power system. Importance is therefore placed on the pro-
vision of time-synchronized frequency measurements that are
now vital for this analysis.
To that effect, the inclusion of phasor measurement units
(PMUs) in the transmission system of England and Wales, with
their high-resolution measurements and improved accuracy of
data, is providing greater detail on the dynamic behavior of the
power system in both real-time and during post-event analysis.
With synchrophasor data made available at 50 Hz on the GB
system, both transient and dynamic events occurring on the
network are now captured. However, it has been shown [1]
that the placement of a PMU with respect to a system event
can greatly affect the post-fault frequency measurement and
any corresponding analysis of that event. In addition, the stan-
dard for synchrophasor measurements (IEEE C37.118.1-2011)
leaves both the method of frequency measurement and the
devices performance under transient conditions unspecied
[2], meaning that under such conditions devices from different
manufactures could produce widely varying results.
In this paper a method is proposed for estimating the total
inertia of the GB power system, by dividing the network into
groups or regions of generation based around the constraint
boundaries of the GB network [3]. The inertia is rst estimated
at a regional level before it is combined to provide a total esti-
mate for the whole network. This estimate is then compared with
the known contribution to inertia from generation, to provide an
estimate for the currently unknown contribution to inertia from
residual sources; namely synchronously connected demand and
embedded generation. The approach is rst demonstrated on the
full dynamic model of the GB power system before results are
presented from analyzing the impact of 22 instantaneous trans-
mission in-feed loss events, using phase-angle data provided by
3 PMUs from the GB transmission network and also devices in-
stalled at the domestic supply at 4 GB universities.
The remainder of this paper is organised as follows. In
Section II, the GB transmission system is described in addition
to the existing and future frequency response requirements.
In Section III, an overview is provided on the existing PMU
deployment on the GB system. Section IV details the litera-
ture-based methods of inertial frequency response estimation
702 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 30, NO. 2, MARCH 2015

and in Section V the proposed regional inertia method is pre- up to 300 MW, and a maximum frequency deviation of
sented for the GB system. Further work and concluding remarks Hz for events considered to be abnormal. If the rate of change
are nally presented in Sections VI and VII, respectively. of frequency (RoCoF) following such an event exceeds a pre-
determined limit, then protection systems designed to monitor
II. GB TRANSMISSION SYSTEM for loss of mains (LoM) and prevent the islanding of generation
embedded in the distribution network, may operate and further
The GB transmission network, originally developed in the
exacerbate the fall in frequency. This is particularly problem-
1930s, is a highly interconnected system consisting predomi-
atic for NG, as there is little if any visibility as to the amount
nantly of 275-kV urban rings connected through a 400-kV Su-
of embedded generation online or whereabouts in the network
pergrid. The system has, at present, 4.2 GW of HVDC inter-
it is.
connection, with links to France (2 GW), the Netherlands (1.2
To ensure that these limits are adhered to, a predetermined
GW), Northern Ireland (500 MW), and Ireland (500 MW). The
amount of synchronous spinning reserve is held at any time for
level of interconnection with Europe is expected to double by
frequency response. It is important to note that, at this point in
2030, with additional links expected to Norway, Belgium, and
time, there is no automatic generation control (AGC) imple-
France, increasing the projected total capacity to 8.6 GW. Addi-
mented on the GB system. In addition, there are on-going ac-
tionally, there is currently around 7 GW of wind power directly
tions to review generation patterns and ensure additional fast
connected to the transmission system, with a further 3 GW em-
acting reserve is available if required [8].
bedded in the distribution system and therefore not visible to the
In order to establish the effect on system frequency of the in-
transmission system operator (TSO). There is a potential total
creasing volumes of variable speed wind turbines and HVDC
installed wind capacity of 59.2 GW by 2035 [4].
convertor technology, NG formed a Frequency Response Tech-
The prominent network constraint boundary exists in the
nical Sub-Group on November 15, 2010 [9]. To quantify the
two 120-km 400-kV double circuits, which connect the rela-
future frequency response requirements, NG evaluated various
tively small system in Scotland, having approximately 13-GW
generation backgrounds based on its Gone Green scenario, at
generation capacity, with the much larger system of England
demand levels ranging from 20 GW to 65 GW. Each of the sce-
and Wales, having nearly 80 GW of generation capacity.
narios considered High, Average and Low Wind conditions and
This boundary is currently stability-limited to approximately
was studied using the full dynamic system model implemented
2500 MW; to facilitate the increasing power transfer from
in Digsilent Power Factory in order to ensure that the SQSS con-
growing volumes of Scottish renewables, the installation of
ditions could be satised for the largest loss of 1800 MW. The
thyristor controlled series capacitors (TCSCs) and mechani-
recommendations concluded that a Fast Frequency Response
cally switched capacitors (MSCs) are set to raise the capacity
(FFR) capability should be developed as it is less challenging
of this boundary to approximately 4400 MW. The additional
to implement than the alternatives of synthetic inertia services,
connection of the rst intra-network HVDC cable link for the
considered to reduce the risk of further power reductions from
GB system along the west coast is set to further increase the
the interaction with wind turbines in the recovery period and
boundary to 6600 MW by 2016 [5].
avoid additional complications with RoCoF sampling [9].
While the overall generation capacity of the system is in-
A typical frequency trace following an in-feed loss, as a con-
creasing, this is almost entirely due to the connection of wind-
sequence of an abnormal event, and the corresponding deploy-
farms, and thus a large amount of the existing forms of in-
ment of reserves to restore the system frequency can be seen
ertia are being displaced. With additional volumes of offshore
in Fig. 1. Primary frequency response reserves must activate
wind connecting to various locations around the periphery of
within 2 s of a loss and be fully deliverable to the system at
the transmission system, both the generation pattern and power
10 s; these reserves must also be maintained, where necessary,
ows will become increasingly dynamic in nature and more dif-
for a further 20 s. Secondary frequency response is deliverable
cult to predict.
following primary response timescales, and can be required for
A. Frequency Response Requirements up to 30 min after an event. The purpose of primary response
is to arrest the initial frequency deviation, while the secondary
The GB power system has no synchronous connection to any response is required to restore the frequency back to within op-
other national electricity networks, and therefore must rely on erational limits.
the actions of generators, DC converters and additional demand The move towards FFR and rapid frequency response will
services to control the system frequency as part of an Ancillary require primary response services to have activated within 1 s of
Services Agreement [6]. The Security and Quality of Supply a -Hz change in frequency and have to be fully delivered
Standard (SQSS) [7] details the GB transmission system obli- to the system within 5 s, for users bound by the provisions of
gations on frequency, which should nominally be kept at 50 Hz, the Grid Code including asynchronous generation, this allows
but is to be maintained within the dened statutory limits of 49.5 frequency response volumes to be reduced signicantly [10].
Hz and 50.5 Hz % . For an abnormal event that is consid-
ered to be an instantaneous in-feed loss GW but below the
B. Inertia Contribution
greatest instantaneous loss, which as of 1st April 2014 is 1800
MW, the system may deviate beyond these limits, but must be Large synchronous generators provide the majority of the
regulated to a minimum of 49.5 Hz within one minute. inertia to the GB system, for which accurate power plant
In addition to the SQSS limits, the national electricity trans- models and operating information are typically available. The
mission system operator (NETSO) of GB, National Grid (NG), remaining system inertia termed as the residual contribution
imposes its own operating limits of 50 Hz Hz for losses and currently assumed to contribute around 20% to the total, is
ASHTON et al.: INERTIA ESTIMATION OF THE GB POWER SYSTEM USING SYNCHROPHASOR MEASUREMENTS
Fig. 1. Frequency response requirements on the GB transmission system.
provided by small and micro generation, which is embedded
in the distribution network, where less specic information is
available and by industrial, commercial and domestic demand,
for which there is very limited information available [8].
The existing assumption is that system inertia varies linearly
with demand, and as will be shown, this assumption is becoming
increasingly invalid with growing volumes of the demand being
met by electronically decoupled generation such as HVDC in-
terconnectors and wind farms.
Large frequency deviations as a result of instantaneous
in-feed losses are a rare occurrence on the GB system, but at
present these provide the only reliable source of information
on system frequency behavior, and with it the only opportunity
to calculate estimates of total system inertia. Provision of
accurate synchronized frequency information pertaining to
such events becomes vital when attempting to perform these
estimates. Additionally, an understanding of the measurement
algorithms employed and any limitations of a devices transient
performance is now also necessary.
III. WIDE AREA MONITORING OF GB
The wide area monitoring system (WAMS) running at NG is
in the early stages of its development. PMUs have been installed
on the transmission system of England and Wales through a se-
ries of upgrades to digital fault recorders (DFRs) and the instal-
lation of some dedicated PMUs, where convenient substation
outages permitted. The majority of the devices are congured
to report back to a central phasor data concentrator (PDC) in-
stalled at the electricity national control centre (ENCC), running
the Psymetrix PhasorPoint application for stability analysis. The
PMUs have been integrated within NGs internal business LAN,
which has, at times, resulted in poor data availability. This com-
bined with other issues surrounding the upgrading of the DFRs
has resulted in reliable data being consistently provided from
only 3 devices.
The primary role of the system is to monitor for any oscilla-
tory behavior between the generators in Scotland and those of
England and Wales. An inter-area mode had been previously
identied at around 0.5 Hz involving all of the GB system
and remains a cause for concern across the prominent system
703
constraint boundary (B6). This boundary is formed by the
two 120-km 400-kV double circuits that connect the Scottish
Network with the North of England.
At present 2 PMUs are used to monitor this inter-area oscil-
lation, with one device in the North East of England that is best
positioned to detect for any oscillations between England and
Scotland, and another near the centre of the network located
close to the centre of inertia of the England and Wales system.
By comparing the amplitude of any oscillations between the two
locations it should be possible to determine whether the source
of the oscillation is in the North or South of the network.
The PhasorPoint system carries out constant oscillation anal-
ysis on the Active Power signals calculated from the PMUs and
provides updates to the frequency, amplitude and damping of the
inter-area modes. Alarms are sent from this system in real-time
to the energy management system (EMS), to alert the network
operators when the system is believed to be approaching insta-
bility.
The existing WAMS can be considered as providing a
strictly monitoring role of the transmission network, with no
critical emphasis on the need to provide active control to any
operational systems. The PMUs have been installed through
a bottom-up approach, where experience of the devices on
the network and the demonstration of business benets to NG
and the GB system will lead to application specic installa-
tions. Once reliability and condence in the use of PMUs is
established, applications may then be considered where data
from the PMUs contribute to control and protection actions
in the operation of the system. As development progresses, it
is anticipated that the number of PMUs deployed in the GB
system will continue to increase, with the continued upgrading
of all suitable DFR units.
A. University-Based WAMS
PMUs have also been deployed at the domestic supply, 415-V
3-phase AC, at 4 U.K. universities, Brunel, Birmingham, Man-
chester and Strathclyde. Synchrophasor data, in voltage (mag-
nitude and phase), frequency and rate of change of frequency
(RoCoF), is measured locally at 50 Hz and sent via the Internet
to a server in Ljubljana, Slovenia hosted by ELPROS. This
system provides good geographical visibility of the GB trans-
mission system with PMUs well distributed across the network,
providing good visibility over the impact of any system events
through the Anglo-Scottish connection.
The data is stored and made available on the remote server
on a rolling 2-week cycle, it is therefore becoming increasingly
important to capture the data surrounding system events in a
timely manner, to ensure that it is available for post-event anal-
ysis such as inertia estimation.
IV. INERTIAL FREQUENCY RESPONSE ESTIMATION
The inertial response of the GB system is considered to be the
period up to one second immediately following an in-feed loss,
prior to the activation of primary frequency response reserves.
During this time, the system frequency response is unregulated,
and its behavior is dictated primarily by the inertia present in
the power system. The RoCoF following such an imbalance be-
tween supply and demand depends on the inertia present in the
system at the time of the offending disturbance, as well as the
704
size of the loss. This can be calculated from the simplied rotor
swing equation [11]
(1)
where is the moment of inertia with the units kg-m is
the angular velocity of the rotor in rad/s (mech.), and is the
change of torque in terms of and , the mechanical input
torque to the machine and electrical output torque, respectively.
It is common practice to work with the normalized inertia
constant , dened as the ratio of the stored kinetic energy at
synchronous speed to the VA rating of the machine, with as
the synchronous angular velocity of the rotor in rad/s (mech.):
(2)
We are concerned with system frequency, , at the electrical
output of the generator, so accounting for the number of eld
poles of the generator and utilizing the relationship
, the synchronous speed of the generator rotor in Hz (elec.)
is calculated as
(3)
Incorporating (3) and (2) into (1), understanding that power is
equal to the rotational speed of the generator multiplied by the
torque, leads to the more commonly expressed equation relating
the RoCoF to the total system inertia
(4)
where is the change in active power due to an in-feed loss
in MW relative to the systems load base in MVA, and is the
system frequency at the time of the disturbance . (5)
The known contribution to inertia from the transmission-con-
nected generation provides an upper limit to the maximum pos-
sible value of RoCoF; an accurate measured value should thus
always be less than this value to account for inertia from the
aforementioned residual sources.
A. Factors Affecting Inertia Estimation
The ability to estimate the inertia of the system through this
method is dependent on the accuracy of the measured data uti-
lized in (4), and can be summarized as follows:
precise data on the size of loss;
online plant inertias (for estimate of residual contribution);
identication of event start time ; The upper subplot in Fig. 2 shows the system frequency as
accuracy of frequency measurement;
method of RoCoF calculation;
location of measurement point relative to in-feed loss.
The specic parameter estimated from online measured
system data is the or RoCoF experienced by the system
during the loss of generation. It has been shown in [1] that the
location of the frequency measurement relative to the loss is
also a pertinent factor in the estimation. For an identical event,
a measurement taken from a location in the network which
is weakly interconnected and has low localized inertia will
produce a higher magnitude estimate of RoCoF, relative to the
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 30, NO. 2, MARCH 2015
Fig. 2. Frequency trace and calculated following a 1000-MW in-feed
loss of generation in the South of the Network.
estimate yielded from a measurement taken from an electrically
strong part of the network with a relatively high inertia.
B. Frequency and RoCoF Calculation
The frequency measurements available on the GB system are
predominantly provided through the upgraded DFR-type PMU
devices. Although the measurements are time-synchronized at
source, they employ the zero-crossing method to calculate fre-
quency. This frequency calculation method, compounded with
potential errors due to quantization, has at times resulted in poor
frequency resolution. For this reason, the analysis of the GB
system is carried out using frequency measurements calculated
from the time derivative of the voltage phase angle [12]
as this provided better frequency estimates. Here, is the nom-
inal system frequency, is the voltage phase angle, and is the
sampling frequency of the measurement device.
It has been shown [1], [13], [14] that a method of curve t-
ting is required to mitigate the impacts of measured transients
in frequency following a loss, otherwise the calculated RoCoF
may be signicantly larger than anticipated for the given system
loss. Without some form of signal conditioning, the electrical
distance between the measurement and the location of the event
is the primary factor inuencing the calculated RoCoF, as can
be seen in Fig. 2.
measured from 3 installed PMUs located in the North, Mid-
lands, and South of England, in response to an in-feed loss of
1000 MW in the South of England. It can be seen that the PMU
nearest to the event records the most signicant frequency de-
viation, and therefore yields the largest magnitude estimate of
RoCoF. It should also be noted that the PMUs are from the same
manufacturer and are all the same model.
The RoCoF also has be estimated over the relevant time in-
terval, between the start of the event and the onset of primary
response. In the GB system, primary response can be observed
deploying within one second following an in-feed loss event.
ASHTON et al.: INERTIA ESTIMATION OF THE GB POWER SYSTEM USING SYNCHROPHASOR MEASUREMENTS 705

Fig. 3. Low pass lter applied to measured frequency transient. Fig. 4. Instantaneous loss from an interconnector importing 1000 MW (upper
subplot), and a staggered loss from a generator exporting a total of 1200 MW
(lower subplot).

For the GB system, previous works by the authors [1] have

demonstrated the use of a fth order polynomial to minimize
the inuence of the measured transients before estimating the
RoCoF. This has since been found to be unsuitable, as the tting
of the polynomial is too dependent on frequency effects well
outside inertial time-scales, due to the curve having to be aligned
with up to 20 s of data.
In this work, following analysis of these measured transients
in the frequency domain, it was identied that in all cases the
signal energy resulting from the transient distortion was mainly
present above 0.5 Hz, so a lowpass Butterworth lter with a
0.5-Hz corner frequency was utilized to isolate the dominant
system inertial frequency response, as shown in Fig. 3. The
RoCoF was then calculated using a 500-ms sample-by-sample
sliding window, over a one second period following the in-feed
loss. The maximum value was then taken to represent the free-
fall period of frequency deviation following the event before
any frequency response services start to take effect. Fig. 5. Detrended uctuation analysis on the events of Fig. 4.

C. Event Detection and Start Time

As previously mentioned, the instant of an event occurrence
needs to be determined to assist in the accurate calcula-
tion of RoCoF. In [13], this is calculated using a moving av-
erage lter. This method, while explored, did not yield suitable
results for the GB system, as the exact start of the event was
still unclear. As an alternative, a modied form of detrended
uctuation analysis (DFA) [1], [15] has been used to both de-
tect the start of the event, as well as to determine a particular
events suitability for inertia estimation, the key criteria being
the instantaneous nature of the loss. An example of this on two
real system events is shown in Fig. 4, where the upper sub-
plot shows the instantaneous loss of an interconnector importing
1000 MW, and a smooth decrease in frequency is observed as a
result of this event. The lower subplot displays an event where
the disturbance appears as two distinct loss events, leading to a
non-monotonic frequency deviation.
Detecting a suitable event is achieved by observing the time-
varying properties of the extracted uctuation , obtained using
DFA. The algorithm is run over a sliding sample-by-sample
window with a length of 50 samples (one second of data). When
the uctuation is rst detected to increase above a threshold uc-
tuation level of , initially determined through
a series of baseline studies, the beginning of a potentially suit-
able event is indicated. A suitable event is chosen when the uc-
tuation decreases below the threshold within 1 s, indicating a
narrow uctuation pulse. Any additional uctuations within this
period would indicate additional in-feed loss events, and due to
the sampling rate of supervisory control and data acquisition
(SCADA) systems being less than 1 Hz, an accurate value for
the in-feed loss would not be possible.
The results from the DFA algorithm are shown in Fig. 5,
where the suitability of the measured events to provide an es-
timate of inertia is displayed. The results in the upper subplot,
corresponding to the event shown in the upper subplot of Fig. 4,
indicate that the event start time is discernible, and for values
of uctuation , the single isolated peak indi-
cates suitability of the event for inertia estimation. The lower
subplot, corresponding to the event from the lower subplot of
Fig. 4, displays multiple peaks, indicative of the non-simulta-
neous generation loss. Thus, the unsuitability of this event for
inertial estimation is conrmed.
706 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 30, NO. 2, MARCH 2015

V. REGIONAL INERTIA ESTIMATION

In this analysis, estimation of the total system inertia and not
the average throughout the network is of primary concern, so all
of the results are presented with respect to as opposed
to .
The location of an event within the power system denes
the specic electrical distance to generators and this in turn
determines the corresponding frequency response of those
generators. The response of generators closer to the distur-
bance will be more rapid and severe than the response of more
distantly located generators [16]. Regardless of the electrical
distance to a disturbance, the response of a generator will still
be in proportion to the size of the loss relative to the generator's
inertia.
From the swing equation for the th generator
the relative proportion of the loss as seen by a generator,
can be determined:

(6)

If the for all generators can be precisely measured, for

example, from a PMU installed at every generation bus, and
with accurate information regarding the inertia of the th gener-
ator, then the summation of swing equations can be used to
determine the exact size of the loss, : Fig. 6. Location of monitoring nodes, installed PMUs and simulated events.

(7)
Conversely, in the real system case for GB, if the size of
loss and total inertia from generation is accurately known in
advance, then the total inertia for the whole system can be esti-
mated from the ratio of the estimate of the loss to the known
loss :
(8)
The estimate of the loss for the GB system should always
be less than the actual known value of the loss , to account
for the residual contributions to inertia.
A. Modeled Examples
In the following example the full dynamic model for the GB
transmission system was used, as represented and simulated in
Digsilent PowerFactory. The modeled scenario consisted of 104
individual generators, comprising 48 gensets, which have been
represented by 41 monitoring nodes, with electrically local gen-
eration grouped together as shown in Fig. 6, as these points pro-
vided an accurate representation of the frequencies of the indi-
vidual generators.
A simulation was run for 7 events spread across the network
of England and Wales, to provide insight into the visibility of
events around the system, located as shown in Fig. 6.
For the rst simulated event a generator exporting 520 MW
to the network was instantaneously tripped off through breaker
action. The system demand in MW and the total inertia of the
system in H MVA are as shown by the totals at the bottom of
Table I. The for the individual nodes was calculated fol-
lowing a lowpass lter at 0.5-Hz cutoff over 500 ms and is also
provided, along with the relative proportion of the loss that
was seen, all calculated using (6). The system frequency, at
the time of the disturbance was 50 Hz.
It can be seen from Table I that for this simulated event
the size of the loss was estimated exactly, coming out at
520.0035 MW. In order to emphasis the effect that the relative
location of the event to the monitoring node can have on
this type of estimation, considering the worst-case scenario
estimates based on minimal information, the maximum and
minimum values of , as measured to be Hz/s
and Hz/s, respectively, are taken and assumed
to represent the total system response. Taking these values
forward, from (6) and the totals of Table I this would result in a
loss estimation of 2151.61 MW and 296.49 MW, respectively,
which demonstrates the potential inaccuracies from a single
monitoring node, which does not sufciently represent the
response of the whole system.
In order to quantify the accuracy of the estimation method
based on the equivalent monitoring nodes of the 3 PMUs
installed on the GB transmission network, the GB system
was divided up into the North, Midlands and the South, ac-
cording to the system constraint boundaries, as outlined in [3].
The boundaries were determined following detailed analysis
looking at circuit ows, voltages and generator stability risks
following faults and the loss of circuits. This process went
on to identify critical circuits that can limit the ow of power
from a specic area in turn informing the boundaries of the
transmission system [3].
ASHTON et al.: INERTIA ESTIMATION OF THE GB POWER SYSTEM USING SYNCHROPHASOR MEASUREMENTS 707

TABLE I
INERTIA ESTIMATION ON A MODELED EXAMPLE
BASED ON 41 MONITORING NODES

Fig. 7. Generator groupings relative to PMU monitoring nodes.

TABLE II
INERTIA ESTIMATION ON A MODELED
EXAMPLE 1 BASED ON 3 MONITORING NODES

TABLE III
INERTIA ESTIMATION ON A MODELED EXAMPLE 1
BASED ON 7 MONITORING NODES

As can be seen in Fig. 7, the North of the system was grouped

as all generation above constraint boundary B7a, with the South
combined as everything below B9 and the Midlands consisting
of the generation in between.
It can be seen from Table II that the PMUs for the North,
Midlands and the South correspond to nodes 3, 9 and 26 re-
spectively. The grouped generation in terms of demand and in-
ertia are also displayed along with the estimated proportions of
the loss and , which remain the same as for the pre-
vious table. The estimate for the loss is now 3.6% higher than
the known value.
To incorporate the available monitoring nodes from the dashed lines. The corresponding monitoring nodes representing
University based WAMS, the network was divided again based Strathclyde, Manchester, Birmingham, and Brunel PMUs are
on additional constraint boundaries, as shown in Fig. 7 by the 5, 10, 12, and 37, as shown in Table III.
708 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 30, NO. 2, MARCH 2015

TABLE IV
INERTIA ESTIMATION ACCURACY BASED ON 7 MODELED EXAMPLES

The inclusion of the extra 4 PMUs from the universities has Fig. 8. Known inertia from generation compared with total GB system demand
a large impact on the results reducing the error to just % for 22 separate generation loss events.
with the estimate for the loss being just over 1 MW out.
The same procedure was applied to all 7 loss events from
TABLE V
Fig. 6 with the results of the estimation displayed in Table IV. INERTIA ESTIMATION BASED ON 22 GENERATION LOSS EVENTS
With all 41 monitoring nodes available the approach can be FROM THE GB TRANSMISSION SYSTEM WITH 3 MONITORING NODES
considered reliably accurate, with the results always being
within about 1 MW of exact. The results for 7 monitoring nodes
showed notable improvement over the results for 3 nodes, with
the improvement to the estimation shown to be between 0.5%
and 3.5%. The results of Event 2 displayed the worst accuracy
because of its location in the system, isolated at the end of a
long line and clearly not as well represented by the existing
PMUs.

B. Results From Genuine Measured GB System Events

Using the DFA method, 22 suitable events were detected on
the GB system, as detailed in Table V where the known size of
the loss , and total inertia from generation , are
provided. Fig. 8 shows the ratio of system demand against the
known value of inertia from generation, it can be clearly seen
from the correlation coefcient, value of 0.686, that this is
denitely not a perfect linear relationship, system inertia does
not increase exactly in line with demand.
The total inertia of the system was estimated based on the
ratio of the estimate of the loss to the known loss ,
according to (8).
The results of total system inertia estimation are displayed in
Table V, and with this an estimate for the percentage of inertia
provided by residual sources. This estimate is seen to vary from
around 8% to 25% of total system inertia, with an average of
18.18% over the 22 events. It is important to note that the con-
tribution to system inertia from residual sources is not expected
to be a constant value, with the contribution determined by the
demand services and the amount of embedded generation on-
line, which in itself is likely to be determined by the weather for TABLE VI
INERTIA ESTIMATION BASED ON 3 GENERATION LOSS EVENTS FROM
the contribution from the embedded wind. THE GB TRANSMISSION SYSTEM WITH 7 MONITORING NODES
PMU data from the University PMUs was only captured for
3 of the events, namely 18, 19, and 20, as the system currently
operates on 2 weeks worth of rolling storage. Using the addi-
tional data provided by the university PMUs, the network can
be subdivided into 7 areas, and the improvement in total inertia
estimation and hence the estimate for the residual inertia contri-
bution under these conditions is provided in Table VI.
ASHTON et al.: INERTIA ESTIMATION OF THE GB POWER SYSTEM USING SYNCHROPHASOR MEASUREMENTS
VI. FURTHER WORK
Applying continuous analysis of transmission events is likely
to yield a more accurate estimate for the residual contribution
to system inertia, this will also be continually improved as ad-
ditional PMUs are added to the network, providing increased
coverage of the regional variations. Further work is thus pro-
posed to investigate the PMU placement requirements for full
visibility of all system events.
VII. CONCLUSION
A novel approach has been demonstrated to estimate the total
inertia of the GB power system based on the summation of es-
timates taken at a regional level. The methodology lters mea-
sured transients in frequency data in order to obtain a reliable
estimate of inertia for a given region of the GB network.
The procedure was rst demonstrated in Digsilent PowerFac-
troy using the full dynamic model of the GB power system, be-
fore being applied to 22 genuine system events as detected from
the real transmission system. The results determined the per-
centage of residual inertia on the GB system to be between 8%
and 25%. It is important to note that the contribution to system
inertia from residual sources is not expected to be a constant
value, with the contribution determined by the amount of em-
bedded generation online and also by the contribution from de-
mand services.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Dr. B. Dolan from the Elec-
tricity National Control Centre at National Grid, for his insight
and assistance on this work, and National Grid, U.K. for the pro-
vision of simulation models and measurement data.
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Phillip M. Ashton (S'10) received the M.Eng. degree from the University of
Portsmouth, U.K., in 2006. He is currently pursuing the Eng.D. degree at Brunel
University, London, U.K.
He is based in industry with the electricity transmission system operator,
National Grid. His research interests are focused around exploiting the use of
phasor measurement units for enhanced operation and control of the GB trans-
mission system.
Christopher S. Saunders (M'11) received the B.S. degree (Summa Cum Laude)
from North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA, in 2002; the M.S. de-
gree from Northeastern University, Boston, MA, in 2007; and the Ph.D. degree
in electrical engineering with North Carolina State University in 2011.
He worked for Intersil Corporation as a Senior Applications Engineer prior to
returning to pursue his Ph.D. degree. He is currently working as a post-doctoral
researcher with the Electric Power Engineering division at Chalmers Univer-
sity of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. His research interests are numerical
analysis and optimization methods applied to the modeling and simulation of
electronic, electromagnetic, and electric power systems.
Gareth A. Taylor (SM'13) received the B.Sc. degree from the University of
London, U.K., in 1987 and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of
Greenwich, U.K., in 1992 and 1997, respectively.
He was the National Grid UK post-doctoral scholar at Brunel University,
U.K., from 20002003. He is currently a Professor and Director within the
Brunel Institute of Power Systems, Brunel University. His research interests
include smart grids, wide area monitoring of power systems, and network
optimization.
Alex M. Carter received the B.Eng. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of
Bath, Bath, U.K., in 1992 and 1995, respectively.
He joined National Grid U.K. in 1995 and is now looking at how National
Grid needs to adapt its Great Britain System Operator role, processes, and sys-
tems to the challenges of decarbonizing the production of electricity.
Martin E. Bradley received the B.Eng. degree in electrical engineering from
Imperial College London, London, U.K., in 1983 and the Ph.D. degree in
advanced thyristor valves for HVDC transmission in 1989 while working for
GEC.
He then joined National Grid, where his career has focused on the devel-
opment and operation of IT systems in the power system environment. He is
currently Strategy and Innovation Manager at National Grids electricity control
center, Wokingham, U.K.