Electric Power Systems Research 152 (2017) 257–270

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Electric Power Systems Research

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/epsr

Review

A review of the enabling methodologies for PMUs-based dynamic

thermal rating of power transmission lines
Guido Coletta, Alfredo Vaccaro ∗ , Domenico Villacci
Department of Engineering (DING), University of Sannio, Piazza Roma 21, 82100 Benevento, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In the last years, dynamic thermal rating assessment of overhead lines has gained a critical importance in
Received 13 March 2017 power system operation, since it allows transmission system operators to reliably increase the exploita-
Received in revised form 15 May 2017 tion of existing infrastructures, avoiding the construction of new transmission assets, and increasing the
Accepted 11 July 2017
hosting capacity of renewable power generators. Amongst the possible approaches that can be adopted
Available online 27 July 2017
to solve the thermal estimation problem, the one based on synchrophasor data processing is considered
as one of the most promising enabling technologies, since it does not require the need for deploying
Keywords:
dedicated sensing technologies distributed along the line route, but only the availability of synchronized
Dynamic thermal rating
Wide area monitoring
measurements already available in the control centers for supporting wide area power system applica-
Synchrophasors tions. Anyway, the deployment of this technology in real operation conditions is still at its infancy, and
Phasor measurement unit several open problems need to be addressed, such as the accuracy drop in low loading conditions, and the
need for properly representing and managing the data uncertainties in the thermal estimation process.
In trying to address these issues, this paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the most promising
solution methods proposed in the literature, evaluating their performances on a real case-study based
on a thermally constrained power transmission line located in the north of Italy.
© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
2. Mathematical preliminaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
3. PMU-based methods for DTR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
3.1. Single and double measurement methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
3.2. Non-linear least square optimal estimator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
3.3. Calibration method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
3.4. Optimization-based methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
4. Case study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
4.1. DTR accuracy for different levels of data uncertainty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
4.2. DTR accuracy in a real operation scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
4.2.1. Single measurement method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
4.2.2. Non-linear least square optimal estimator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
4.2.3. Calibration method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
4.2.4. Optimization-based method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
4.3. Load capability estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
5. Result and discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
6. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: vaccaro@unisannio.it (A. Vaccaro).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.epsr.2017.07.016
0378-7796/© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
258 G. Coletta et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 152 (2017) 257–270
List of acronyms
OHL Overhead transmission line
TSO Transmission system operator
DTR Dynamic thermal rating
PMU Phasor measurement unit
PE Parameter estimation
NLLS Non-linear least square
TVE Total vector error
WAMS Wide area monitoring System
1. Introduction
The increased loading of the power components, especially the
overhead transmission line (OHL), is one of the most challenging
issues to address in modern electrical transmission systems, which
are being operated closest to their loadability limits, with severe
impacts on the security and reliability of the entire power network.
The main phenomena driving this trend include the increasing
power transactions due to the difference in locational marginal
prices, the massive penetration of renewable power generators,
and the difficulties in upgrading the existing transmission assets
due to social and environmental issues [1,2].
It is well known that reliable OHLs operation requires, amongst
other things, the rigorous satisfaction of proper thermal con-
straints, which limit the conductor temperature in order to keep
the line sag in fixed allowable ranges, avoiding the risk of ground
faults. Traditionally, transmission system operators (TSOs) aimed
at converting these thermal constraints into a maximum allowable
value of the power transfer capability, which is obtained by solv-
ing the steady-state conductor thermal model using the worst-case
values of the boundary conditions (i.e. wind speed 0.6 m/s, sun irra-
diation 1000 W/m2 , etc.) [3,4]. This conservative approach allows
to reliably operate the OHLs, reducing the risk of faulty conditions,
but at the cost of a sensible under-utilization of the transmission
assets, since the real conductor temperature is extremely overesti-
mated, especially when the weather conditions sensibly differ from
the worst-case profiles assumed in solving the conductor thermal
model. Hence, the definition of more effective OHLs loading poli-
cies become appealing in order to reliably improve the components
explotation by a more accurate assessment of their real loadability
margins [5–8].
In this domain, the application of advanced methodologies for
dynamic thermal rating (DTR) represents a very promising research
direction, since it could allow the on-line estimation of the actual
conductor temperature, and the assessment of the corresponding
load capability curves, supporting the TSOs in defining reliable and
effective OHLs loading policies.
Modern DTR architectures are based on pervasive and ubiq-
uitous sensing technologies, which can directly measure the
conductor temperature, or estimating it by periodically solving a
calibrated thermal model with the actual values of the environmen-
tal variables measured along the line route [6,9,10]. Although the
performance of these methods have been experimentally validated
in different operation scenarios [11,12], several open problems
need to be addressed in order to support their large-scale pervasion
in existing power transmission networks. The need for deploy-
ing pervasive and reliable peer-to-peer networks, the difficulties
arising in installing the sensors on the conductor surface, and the
integrity assessment of the sensed data are some of the most critical
issues to address in this domain.
To face some of these limitations, alternative solution tech-
niques based on synchronized data processing have been recently
proposed in the literature. The insight of these methods is to try to
extract actionable intelligence from the large quantity of data made
available by the large pervasion of wide area monitoring systems
(WAMS) into transmission grids, which allow to reliable estimate
the power system state by directly acquiring both current and volt-
age phasors in some strategical network buses [13,14]. Starting
from these time synchronized measurements, these WAMS-based
DTR techniques try to estimate the actual conductor thermal state
by periodically identifying the electrical parameters of the power
lines [15]. According to this computing paradigm, the average line
temperature can be inferred from the knowledge of the actual
values of the electrical line parameters, by using a proper regres-
sive model, which correlates the variations of these parameters,
especially the positive sequence resistance, to the conductor tem-
perature. This thermal estimation process does not require the need
for deploying dedicated sensing technologies distributed along the
line route, since the only requested inputs for solving thermal
estimation problem are the synchronized measurements of the
voltage and current phasors at the both ends of the monitored
line, which are already available in the control centers for imple-
menting wide-area power systems applications [16]. Although this
positive feature is considered a strategic benefit for the TSOs, the
deployment of this technology in real operation conditions is still
at its infancy, and several open problems need to be addressed,
such as the accuracy drop in low loading conditions, and the need
for properly representing and managing the data uncertainties. The
latter represents one of the most challenging research objectives to
address in the context of phasor measurement unit (PMU)-based
applications [17,18], which has recently attracted the attention of
wide-area monitoring, protection and control systems designers.
In particular, paper [19] describes four methods for the solu-
tion of the OHL thermal estimation problem in the presence of
measurement uncertainty, based on both single and double pha-
sor measurements, and using both linear and non-linear least
square-based solution methods. The results discussed in this paper
demonstrate that the non-linear least square approach based on
multiple measurements represents the most viable solution to mit-
igate the effects of measurement errors. This approach has been
improved in [20], which allows improving the overall thermal
estimation accuracy by defining proper bounds on the electrical
parameters, in [21], where the non-linear regression technique is
applied for estimating the electrical line parameters of both power
lines and transformers, and in [22,23] where a new method for esti-
mating the line conductor temperature and the corresponding line
sag is proposed.
An alternative solution technique for uncertainty management
has been described in [24], which proposes a two-stage solution
method to reduce the effects of systematic errors by identifying
proper calibration coefficients, and applying a least square tech-
nique on the calibrated phasors to estimate the uncertain line
parameters.
Finally, Refs. [25,26] propose two reliable thermal identifica-
tion techniques based on the solution of uncertain optimization
problems, whose objective is to minimize the error between the
measured and the estimated phasors. Although these optimization-
based methods exhibited good performances in several operation
scenario, they suffer from severe limitations, mainly related to the
difficulties in identifying the most suitable error function to mini-
mize, and the need for large computational resources.
On the basis of the results discussed in these papers, much of
them based on simulation studies, it can be argued that the reli-
able solution of the DTR problem by PMUs data processing can be
addressed according to different techniques, which sensibly dif-
fer in terms of accuracy, reliability, and promptness. Hence, the
selection of the most effective technique to adopt in real opera-
tion scenarios is not straightforward, and it is further complicated
by the lack of a comprehensive analysis aimed at comparing the
 G. Coletta et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 152 (2017) 257–270
Fig. 1. -Equivalent circuit model of the OHL.
performance of these techniques on a common experimental case
study.
In the light of these needs, in this paper the performance of the
most advanced methods for PMUs-based DTR have been exper-
imentally assessed in the task of solving the thermal estimation
problem for a complex transmission asset, which is based on a
400 kV overhead line located in the north of Italy. A comparison
between the average line temperature estimated by the analyzed
methods for a 6h time horizon, and the real conductor temperature
directly sensed by a measurement system installed in the critical
line span, will be presented and discussed in order to outline the
benefits and the limitations of the considered techniques.
2. Mathematical preliminaries
A fully-transposed electric power line can be modeled at the
direct sequence through a concentrated parameters quadrupole,
represented by the equivalent  circuit shown in Fig. 1.
The electrical state of this circuit is described by the voltage and
current phasors at the first line end, V̄s and Īs , which are related to
the corresponding phasors at the second line end, V̄r and Īr , by the
so called telegraphers equations:
V̄s = Ȧ V̄r + Ḃ Īr
(1)
Īs = Ċ V̄r + Ḋ Īr
where the transmission parameters for the power line can be
defined as follows:
 
Ȧ = cosh (r + jωl) (g + jωc)
   
Ḃ = (r + jωl)/(g + jωc) sinh (r + jωl) (g + jωc)
(2)
1
  
Ċ =  sinh (r + jωl) (g + jωc)
(r + jωl)/ (g + jωc)
Ḋ = Ȧ
These parameters depend on the angular frequency ω = 2f, and
the primary line constants per unit length, namely, the series resis-
tance r, the series inductance l, the shunt conductance g, and the
shunt susceptance c. The latter depend on both the overhead line
characteristics, e.g. the pole geometry, and the conductor thermal
state, especially the conductor temperature.
Consequently, once the voltage and current line phasors are
known, the electrical line parameters can be estimated by manipu-
lating the model formalized in (1), and the corresponding conductor
thermal state can be inferred by using proper regression models,
describing the correlations of the electrical line parameters with the
average conductor temperature. To this aim, the parameter char-
acterized by the highest sensitivity to the conductor temperature
is known to be the series resistance, which can be correlated to
259
Fig. 2. -Circuit model of a short OHL.
the average conductor temperature by the following approximated
equation [6]:
r(T ) = r(Tref ) + ˛(T − Tref ) (3)
where ˛ is the temperature-resistance regression constant, r(T) is
the series resistance at the temperature T and, Tref is a reference
conductor temperature.
Various techniques can be adopted to solve this parameter
estimation (PE) problem in modern PMU-based DTR assessment
procedures, and the most significant of them will be analyzed in
the next section.
3. PMU-based methods for DTR
3.1. Single and double measurement methods
The simpler approach for PMU-based DTR assessment [19] is
based on the solution of the PE problem by manipulating the tele-
graphers’ equations. In particular, the main idea is to identify the
quadrupole constants by inverting (1), using the voltage and cur-
rent phasors measured at the both line ends. This solution paradigm
is typically referred as double measurement method, since it requires
the acquisition of two independent sets of phasor measurements,
namely the voltage and current phasors at both line ends.
An alternative solution approach, requiring only the knowledge
of a single phasor measurement set, can be adopted for solving
the PE problem for the so called short transmission lines, which are
overhead lines characterized by a limited length, typically less than
100–150 km. In this case, it is possible to approximate the hyper-
bolic functions in the transmission parameter equations by their
first order Taylor’s series terms, obtaining the simplified model
shown in Fig. 2, which is described by the following equations:

Ż Ẏ
V̄s = 1+ V̄r + Ż Īr
2
 (4)
Īs = Ẏ V̄r + 1+
Ż Ẏ
Īr
2
where Z = (r + jωl) * L, Y = (g + jωc) * L and L is the line length. Since the
obtained model is a two variables-two equations system, its inver-
sion requires only the knowledge of 4 complex quantities, namely
a single phasor measurement set. Hence, this approach is typically
referred as single measurement method.
Both the single and the double measurement methods allow
obtaining reasonable estimation accuracy when input data are
accurate enough, but their performances tend to degenerate in real
operation scenario, due to the lack of intrinsic tools for data uncer-
tainty modeling. Although the use of redundant measurements can
be adopted in trying to increase the performances of these estima-
tion algorithms, by reducing the effect of random measurement
errors, the tolerance of the estimated line parameters could not
be enough to reliably estimate the average conductor temperature
with an acceptable level of confidence.
260 G. Coletta et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 152 (2017) 257–270

3.2. Non-linear least square optimal estimator 3.3. Calibration method

A challenging idea aimed at solving the parameter estimation Errors in PMU measurements are not only induced by ran-
(PE) problem in the presence of data uncertainty by processing dom errors, which can be effectively managed by the previously
redundant measurements is to design estimation techniques based described techniques, but also by systematic errors, mainly affect-
on the non-linear least square (NLLS) theory [19]. In particular, ing the measurement transformers. To face this issue, in [24] a
given a set of N measurements, Eq. (1) can be written as follows: solution method based on a calibration process is proposed. The
⎧ insight principle is to model systematic errors in phasor mea-
⎪ R(V̄s ) = R(Ā)R(V̄r ) − I(Ā)I(V̄r ) + R(B̄)R(Īr ) − I(B̄)I(Īr )
⎪
⎪ surements as an error in magnitude and an error in phase, hence
⎪
⎨ I(V̄s ) = R(Ā)I(V̄r ) + I(Ā)R(V̄r ) + R(B̄)I(Īr ) + R(B̄)I(Īr ) expressing each measure phasor as follows:
(5)
⎪
⎪ R(Īs ) = R(C̄)R(V̄r ) − I(C̄)I(V̄r ) + R(D̄)R(Īr ) − I(D̄)I(Īr ) P̄ = P̄ ∗ (1 + a)ej (10)
⎪
⎪
⎩
I(Īs ) = R(C̄)I(V̄r ) + I(C̄)R(V̄r ) + R(D̄)I(Īr ) + I(D̄)R(Īr )
where P̄ ∗ ∈ C is the phasor measured by the PMU and a, ∈ R are
where R( · ) and I(·) denote the real and imaginary part of each the corresponding phase and magnitude errors, respectively.
complex quantity. Starting from these equations, and knowing the Since the phase errors are typically less than 0.530◦ , in order to
measured line phasors, it is possible to compute the corresponding satisfy the accuracy requirements of the IEEE Std. C37.118.1.2011
residuals, namely the difference between the measured and the for synchrophasor measurements [27,28], small angle approxima-
theoretical phasors for each set of line parameters, as follows: tion for trigonometric functions can be used, obtaining:
⎧
⎪ f1 (x, ) = R(V̄s )−R(Ā)R(V̄r ) + I(Ā)I(V̄r )−R(B̄)R(Īr ) + I(B̄)I(Īr ) ej ≈ 1 + j (11)
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎨ f2 (x, ) = I(V̄s )−R(Ā)I(V̄r )−I(Ā)R(V̄r )−R(B̄)I(Īr )−R(B̄)I(Īr )
Hence, Eq. (10) becomes:
⎪
⎪ f3 (x, ) = R(Īs )−R(C̄)R(V̄r ) + I(C̄)I(V̄r )−R(D̄)R(Īr ) + I(D̄)I(Īr )
⎪
⎪ P̄ = P̄ ∗ (1 + a)(1 + j) = P̄ ∗ (1 + a + j + ja)
⎩ (12)
f4 (x, ) = I(Īs )−R(C̄)I(V̄r )−I(C̄)R(V̄r )−R(D̄)I(Īr )−I(D̄)R(Īr )
(6) and, by neglecting the second order error terms, it follows that:

P̄ = P̄ ∗ (1 + a)(1 + j) = P̄ ∗ (1 + a + j) (13)

Then, once indicating with x and  the vectors of the syn-
chrophasor measurements, and the line parameters, respectively, Starting form this result, all the phasors at the both line ends
as follows: can be expressed as:
 
x = R(V̄s ) I(V̄s ) R(Īs ) I(Īs ) R(V̄r ) I(V̄r ) R(Īr ) I(Īr )
V̄s = V̄s∗ (1 + as + js )
  V̄r = V̄r∗ (1 + ar + jr )
= r l c g (14)
Īs = Īs∗ (1 + bs + js )
Eq. (6) can be generalized for a set of N phasor measurements
as follows: Īr = Īr∗ (1 + br + jr )
⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤
f11 (x, ) 11 (x, ) and the total errors in phasor measurements can be expressed as:
⎡0⎤ ⎢ f 1 (x, ) ⎥ ⎢ 1 (x, ) ⎥
⎢2 ⎥ ⎢ 2 ⎥
⎢0⎥ ⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥ ıV̄s = V̄s∗ (as + js )
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ f3 (x, ) ⎥ ⎢ 3 (x, ) ⎥
⎢ 1 ⎥ ⎢ 1
⎥
⎢0⎥ ⎢
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ f 1 (x, ) ⎥ ⎥
⎢ 1
⎢
⎥
⎥
ıV̄r = V̄r∗ (ar + jr )
⎢0⎥ ⎢ 4 ⎥ ⎢  (x, )
⎥ (15)
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥ ⎢
4
⎥ ıĪs = Īs∗ (bs + js )
⎢ .. ⎥ ⎢ . ⎥ ⎢ ⎥ = F(x, ) + 
⎢ . ⎥ = ⎢ .. ⎥ +⎢..
⎥ (7)
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥ ⎢ .
⎥ ıĪr = Īr∗ (br + jr )
⎢0⎥ ⎢ N ⎥ ⎢ N (x, ) ⎥
⎢ ⎥ ⎢1 f (x, ) ⎥ ⎢  ⎥
⎢0⎥ ⎢ 1
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ f N (x, ) ⎥ ⎥
⎢ N
⎢
⎥
⎥
If a single set of phasor measurements are available, the sin-
⎣0⎦ ⎢ 2 ⎥ ⎢ 2 (x, ) ⎥ gle measurement method is applied, in order to provide a first
⎢ N ⎥ ⎢ N ⎥ approximation of the line parameters, trough the inversion of the
0 ⎣ f3 (x, ) ⎦ ⎣ 3 (x, ) ⎦
telegraphers’ equations:
f4N (x, ) N4 (x, )
V̄s2 − V̄r2
Thanks to this mathematical formulation, it is possible to esti- Ż =
V̄s Īr2
2 + V̄r2 Īs2
mate the line parameters by identifying  that minimizes the (16)
residual of F(x, ), . This scalar minimization problem can be solved 2(Īs − Īr )
Ẏ =
using a NLLS regression technique, by deploying the following iter- V̄s + V̄r
ative procedure:
The first order approximation of the corresponding estimation
 k+1 =  k +  k (8) errors can be expressed as:
−1
 k = (HT H) HT (−F(x,  k )) (9) ∂Ż ∂Ż
ıŻ = ıV̄s + ıV̄r
where H is the Jacobian matrix of F(x,  k ). This iteration process
∂V̄s ∂V̄r
(17)
is typically interrupted when the variable update, ␪k , results ∂Ẏ ∂Ẏ
ıẎ = ıĪs + ıĪr
smaller than a specified tolerance. ∂Īs ∂Īr
 G. Coletta et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 152 (2017) 257–270 261

Hence, by assuming that the overall measurement errors can be Table 1

Main line characteristics.
defined as:
a = ar − as Phase conductors 2
Conductor type ACSR
 = r − s Length 112.2 km
(18) Nominal voltage 400 kV
b = br − bs Conductor diameter 31.5 mm
Positive sequence resistance 3.15 
 = r − s Positive sequence reactance 38.2 
Positive sequence susceptance 2 × 191.5 × 10−6 s
where, according to the argumentation presented in paper, the
maximum allowable ranges for these error functions can be esti-
mated as: of the squared errors between the measured and the estimated
|a| < 0.02 phasors, as detailed in the following equations:
|| < 0.02
(19) min [E (|V̄ |) + E (∠V̄ ) + E (|Ī|) + E (∠Ī)] (24)
|b| < 0.02 [r,xl ,g,b]

|| < 0.02 where

Starting from these results, it is possible to compute the corre- N  2
 |V̄ |s,i − |V̄ |s,i,estimated
sponding relative errors in Z̄ and Ȳ estimation as follows: E (|V̄ |) = (25)
  |V̄ |s,i
ıZ̄ −2(ar − as + jr − js )V̄r∗2 i=1
=
Z̄ app
V̄s∗2 − V̄r∗2 N 
 2
  (20)
E (∠V̄ ) =
∠V̄s,i − ∠V̄s,i,estimated
(26)
ıȲ −2(br − bs + jr − js )Īr ∠V̄s,i
=
Ȳ app
V̄s∗ + V̄r∗ i=1

N 
 2
This important result allows computing the values of the uncer- |I|s,i − |I|s,i,estimated
tain variables a, b,  and , which minimize, on a fixed time window, E (|Ī|) = (27)
|I|s,i
the time integral of the square error between the measured and the i=1

estimated phasors at both line ends. N 

 2
In solving this problem, a linear drift of both line resistance ∠Īs,i − ∠Īs,i,estimated
E (∠Ī) = (28)
and reactance is assumed, while conductance and susceptance ∠Īs,i
i=1
are assumed constant during the time window. Thanks to these
hypothesis, which are consistent with the assumptions defined in and N is the number of measured phasors used for estimating each
IEEE Std 738-2012 [7], it is possible to represent the primary con- line parameter set.
stants R = r * L, X = x * L, G = g * L and B = b * L as follows: Similarly to the previously described NLLS methods, this solu-
fR (t) = qR t + rR tion approach tries to minimize the time integral of the squared
error between the measured and the estimated phasors at both line
fX (t) = qX t + rX ends, but rather than solving the PE problem by using a two-step
(21) optimization procedure, which firstly identifies the phasor calibra-
fG (t) = rG
tion constants and then estimates the line parameters, it employs
fB (t) = rB a single optimization procedure, without doing any assumption on
the time evolution of the line parameters.
where the quantities qR , qX , rR , rX , rG and rB are the coefficients of the
line parameter models estimated through a least square procedure.
Consequently, the unknown phasor calibration parameters can 4. Case study
be estimated by solving the following non-linear, constrained opti-
mization problems: In order to characterize the performances of the described meth-
ods in the task of solving complex thermal estimation problems
min gZ (a, ) = SR + SX in a real operation scenario, an experimental case study has been
[a,]
{ |a| < 0.02 (22) considered. To this aim, the data acquired from the Italian wide
area monitoring system [13] for a 400 kV overhead line over a 6 h
|| < 0.02
time window have been used. This is a strategic asset for the Ital-
min gY (b, ) = SG + SB ian power transmission network, since it interconnects two critical
[b,]
system sections, characterized by “large” power transactions. The
{ |b| < 0.02 (23)
main characteristics of the line under study are summarized in
|| < 0.02 Table 1.
Once a, b, ,  have been identified, the corrected phasors can be The measured data include voltage and current phasors at both
computed and a conventional least square procedure can be applied ends of the considered line sampled each 50 ms (Figs. 3 and 4), and
to solve the PE problem as described in the previous section. the conductor temperature of the most critical line span sampled
each 1 min by a high accurate temperature sensor.
3.4. Optimization-based methods The available data are organized as:

Alternative solution approaches recently proposed in the liter- - four vectors of complex number containing Vr , Vs , Ir and Is mea-
ature [25,26] to solve the PE problem are based on the deployment surements, with a cardinality of [1,080,000 × 1];
of optimization frameworks aimed at identifying the set of line - a vector of time tags associated with the PMU measurement, with
parameters, which minimize, on a fixed time window, the sum the same cardinality.
262 G. Coletta et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 152 (2017) 257–270

Fig. 3. PMU measurements-starting section.

Fig. 4. PMU measurements-receiving section.

The first issue to address in solving the PE problem is to fix Table 2

the time window, namely the number of data samples that should
be adopted in estimating the line parameter. To this aim, various
options have been considered:
- estimation of one parameter-set every N measurement;
- estimation of one parameter-set every N measurement through
a moving time window;
- estimation of one parameter-set every Nk measurement through
a moving time window, where Nk is a set of data containing the
average phasors computed every k measurements.
- hybrid approach – estimation of one parameter every N measure-
ment, through a moving window, every k measurement.
In this context, the firsts experimental results demonstrated
that the application of the last approach is the most effective option,
representing a good trade-off between estimation accuracy and
computational burden. Hence, it has been selected for developing
the experiments discussed in this paper.
This conclusion can be confirmed by analyzing the data summa-
rized in Table 2, which reports the computational times requested
to solve the PE problem by using the analyzed solution techniques.
These data have been observed on the same processing system,
Computational time.
Single measurement method 0.15 Seconds
NLLS method 6 Minutes
Calibration method 1.6 Hours
Optimization method 13 Minutes
which is based on the Intel(R) Core(IM) i7-4510 dual core processor,
®
equipped by the Matlab environment.
Starting from these data, two experimental sessions have been
implemented: the first one was aimed at assessing the performance
of the analyzed methods in the task of solving the PE estimation
problem for different level of data uncertainty, which was gener-
ated by properly merging the real measurements with simulation
data, while the second session was aimed at testing the DTR meth-
ods on a real case study, by using only the experimental data.
4.1. DTR accuracy for different levels of data uncertainty
To generate realistic data-sets corrupted by a fixed level of
data uncertainty, a reverse-engineering based procedure has been
adopted. The main idea is to start from the conductor temperature
profile measured by the sensor to obtain a realistic evolution of the
line parameters for a fixed time window. Then, by using these pro-
 G. Coletta et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 152 (2017) 257–270
Fig. 5. TVE histogram (with 0.005 uncertainty level).
files and the measured phasors at one line end, which have been
assumed with no uncertainty, the corresponding phasors at the
other line end have been computed by using (1).
These two phasor sets, which have been assumed as the “true”
data-set on both line ends, have been corrupted by three levels of
data uncertainty, applying the concept of total vector error (TVE).
The latter represents one of the most important figures of merit
characterizing PMUs accuracy. It is defined in [27] as:
 lyzed time window are organized in a matrix composed by 21,600
(R(At ) − R(A))2 + (I(At ) − I(A))2
TVE =
R(At )2 + I(At )2
where At is the true synchrophasor, A is the sensed phasor, R( · ) and
I(·) denotes the real and imaginary part, respectively. This param-
eter is used in the cited IEEE standard as a quality index of the
synchrophasors measurements in power systems.
Errors in measures have been modeled in both phase and mag-
nitude, generating four independent random Gaussian variables,
without doing any assumption on the correlation between the mea-
surements errors of the same instrument channel. The considered
level of uncertainty corresponds to average TVE of 0, 0.005 and 0.01,
respectively.
The corresponding histograms of the TVE are reported in
Figs. 5 and 6, for TVE levels of 0.005 and 0.01, respectively. Start-
ing from these data-sets, the analyzed methods have been applied
obtaining the results summarized in Figs. 7–9, which report the
conductor temperature measured at the critical span, and the cor-
responding estimated profiles, for average TVE of 0, 0.005 and 0.01
respectively. In this context, it is worth noting that, as expected,
the calibration method failed to solve the PE problem, identifying
inconsistent temperature profiles, for TVE greater than 0.005.
4.2. DTR accuracy in a real operation scenario
4.2.1. Single measurement method
The result obtained by applying this method to solve the PE
problem for the analyzed time window are shown in Fig. 10,
which depicts the measured and the estimated temperature pro-
files. These data have been obtained by averaging the conductor
temperature over a time window of 5 min, in order to compen-
sate the errors by using redundant measurements. The deployment
of proper data filtering functions is strictly recommended for the
correct application of this estimation method on real measured
data. This was also confirmed by the experimental results obtained
on the analyzed case study, where it has been observed that the
temperature profiles estimated without performing the averag-
263
ing processing did not match the accuracy requirements of DTR
applications.
4.2.2. Non-linear least square optimal estimator
To test this method, a set of 50 samples for each phasor at
both line ends is used for estimating a single line parameter set,
using a moving window-based approach for solving the estimation
problem at each time step. The corresponding results for the ana-
rows, each one representing a set of estimated line parameters,
(29)
that are time averaged in order to estimate the conductor temper-
ature every 5 min. Figs. 11 and 12 depict the line parameters and
the corresponding conductor temperature estimated through the
application of this methodology.
4.2.3. Calibration method
This method allows managing both statistical and systematic
errors affecting synchrophasor measurements. Correction constant
identified for the 4 phasorial quantities are shown in Fig. 13 and the
corresponding temperature profile, which has been averaged on
1 min time windows, is shown in Fig. 15. Line parameters, instead,
are shown in Fig. 14.
4.2.4. Optimization-based method
The optimization-based methodology has been applied in the
task of solving the following NLP programming problem:
⎧  
⎪ min ∗ [E (|V̄ |) + E (∠V̄ ) + E (|Ī|) + E (∠Ī)]
⎪
⎪ l
⎪ [r,x ,b]
⎨ 0 < r ∗ < inf
(30)
⎪
⎪ 0.9 xLnom < xl∗ < 1.1 xLnom
⎪
⎪
⎩ ∗
0.9 bnom < b < 1.1 bnom
where * is a proper scaling factor, and E (|V̄ |), E (|Ī|), E (∠V̄ ) and
E (∠Ī) are the error functions defined in Section 3.4.
The latter optimization problem has been solved through an
interior-point based method, using the built-in routines available
®
in the optimization toolbox of the Matlab environment.
Line parameter and conductor temperature estimated through
this method are depicted in Figs. 16 and 17, respectively.
4.3. Load capability estimation
The knowledge of the average conductor temperature is a pre-
requisite for assessing the real loadability margins of the monitored
transmission asset on a short-medium time horizon. To this aim,
264 G. Coletta et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 152 (2017) 257–270

Fig. 6. TVE histogram (with 0.01 uncertainty level).

Fig. 7. Estimated conductor temperature TVE = 0.

Fig. 8. Estimated conductor temperature TVE = 0.005.

the dynamic assessment of the load capability curve, reporting the
maximum allowable time for each hypothetical line current, repre-
sents one of the most useful tools. Anyway, this computing process
is a very complex issue to address, since it requires the knowledge of
the actual conductor temperature, the worst-case estimation of the
weather variables along the line route, and the repetitive solution
of a detailed conductor thermal model.
To address this issue, an indirect method for weather parame-
ters estimation has been applied in this paper. The rationale is to
estimate the wind speed, the wind direction, and the ambient tem-
perature by solving an optimization problem that minimizes, on
a fixed time window, the prediction error between the estimated
conductor temperature, and the corresponding one obtained by
applying a first order thermal model [7]. Once the actual weather
parameters have been estimated, and the maximum allowable con-
 G. Coletta et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 152 (2017) 257–270 265

Fig. 9. Estimated conductor temperature TVE = 0.01.

Fig. 10. Estimated conductor temperature – single measurement method.

Fig. 11. Estimated parameter – NLLS method.

ductor temperature has been fixed, the load capability curve is dure summarized in Fig. 18. The obtained results for a fixed thermal
computed by solving the aforementioned thermal model for the state, and a maximum conductor temperature of 90◦ , have been
overall set of hypothetical load currents according to the proce- summarized in Fig. 19.
266 G. Coletta et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 152 (2017) 257–270

Fig. 12. Estimated conductor temperature – NLLS method.

Fig. 13. Correction coefficients.

Fig. 14. Estimated parameters – calibration method.

 G. Coletta et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 152 (2017) 257–270 267

Fig. 15. Estimated conductor temperature – calibration method.

Fig. 16. Estimated parameters – optimization method.

Fig. 17. Estimated conductor temperature – optimization method.

These results confirmed the sensible upset of the conductor vary from 800 to 1200 A in function of the particular solution tech-
estimation accuracy on the loadability assessment. In particular, nique adopted to solve the PE problem. This effect is also evident
by observing the vertical asymptotes of the load capability curves, for the other operation points in the load capability curve, hence
which represents the static thermal ratings, it can be noted as they
268 G. Coletta et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 152 (2017) 257–270

Fig. 18. Capability curve assessment.

Fig. 19. Capability curve.

confirming the strategic importance of implementing a reliable and
accurate method for DTR assessment.
5. Result and discussion
Result obtained by the application of the various described
methodologies allows us to make some useful considerations. In
particular, by analyzing Fig. 7 it is worth observing the sensible
impacts of input data uncertainty on the accuracy of the estimated
line temperature profiles, which lead the calibration method to
completely fail in identifying feasible solutions to the PE problem.
Moreover, in terms of conductor temperature accuracy, both
Optimization-based and single measurement methods exhibited
better performances compared to the other considered techniques,
both in the simulated and the real-time application scenario, but
as outlined in Fig. 20, their performances tend to deteriorate when
line current drops below under certain threshold values. On the
other hand, the numerical stability of both the NLLS and the cal-
ibration methods is less sensitive to the line current, but their
estimation accuracy is lower. In particular, the calibration method
does not provide feasible temperature values in the simulated
 G. Coletta et al. / Electric Power Systems Research 152 (2017) 257–270
Fig. 20. Temperature profiles.
scenario, giving acceptable, although overestimated, results in real-
case applications.
Another interesting argumentation emerging from the analysis
of the obtained results concerns with the values of the estimated
parameters. In this context, the calibration method provides esti-
mations of the shunt susceptance, which are very close to the
nominal value, and estimations of the series line parameters, which
sensible differ from the corresponding nameplate values. This
feature is consistent with previous experimental studies, which
demonstrated that the series parameters exhibit larger sensitivity
to the line temperature variations.
The analyzed methodologies have been originally conceptu-
alized for estimating the electrical line parameters. Anyway, as
demonstrated by the experimental results obtained in this paper,
and confirmed by other field studies reported in the literature,
the deployment of these methodologies in real operation sce-
nario is not straightforward, and requires the application of proper
data miming techniques aimed at mitigating the effects of data
uncertainty, such as missing data, outliers, incoherent samples and
filtering other kind of defective data. These uncertainty sources
can affect the accuracy of the estimated parameters, leading to
unrealistic results. To address this issue, the role of data pre-
processing techniques has been extensively emphasized in the
literature only for specific power system application, such as PMU-
based electromechanical oscillation analysis, while only standard
outlier detection techniques has been deployed for PMU-based line
parameter estimation, to the best of our knowledge. Anyway the
adoption of these techniques did not allow us to obtain a reliable
parameter estimation. Hence, this is an open problem, which asks
for further research efforts.
Finally, it is possible to note that the line temperature estimated
by applying the calibration procedure is highly conservative, which
can be considered as an advantage, since it reduces the risk of ther-
mal line overloading, but at the cost of an asset under-utilization.
6. Conclusion
In this paper a review of the most promising approaches for
PMU-based conductor temperature estimation of overhead lines
have been presented, and their performance have been assessed
and compared by using experimental errors obtained from a 400 kV
power line located in the North of Italy. The experimental ses-
sions were aimed at both characterizing the uncertain propagation
for fixed values of the total vector error, and the accuracy of the
analyzed techniques in the task of estimating the average line tem-
269
perature by processing the real data sensed by the PMUs. The results
obtained demonstrated that both systematic and random mea-
sured data influences the accuracy performances of the analyzed
estimation algorithms to a considerable extent, and the selection
of the most effective paradigm for data uncertainty management
in PMU-based DTR is still an open problem, requiring further inves-
tigations. Further experimental activities, based on longer time
horizons, higher loading levels, and extremely variable weather
conditions, are currently under investigation by the Authors in
order to confirm these conclusive remarks on different, and more
complex, operation scenario.
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