Wide-Area Protection and its Applications - A

Bibliographical Survey
Jian Xiao, Fushuan Wen, C.Y. Chung, Member, IEEE and K.P. Wong, Fellow, IEEE

 hence only the local system could be protected. Certainly, it is

Abstract--Modern power systems are continuously developing quite difficult to maintain the stability and security of the
to large and interconnected ones. The power industry whole, if only local measurements are employed in the
restructuring and the reduced investment in transmission system protection system.
expansion make power systems operate closer and closer to their
With the continuously-increasing power demands, the
limits, and hence lead to larger possibility of fault outages than
before. Therefore, the protection and control in power systems evolution of the power industry restructuring, and the ever-
become more and more important as well as complicated. On the increasing scale of the power system, the system is operated
other hand, the continuous technological development in closer to its stability limits, and as a result, the operation and
communication and measurement accelerates the occurrence and control is becoming more complicated, and the system is more
applications of wide-area protection, a kind of advanced vulnerable to disturbances and faults. Moreover, the
protections based on wide-area measurements. The blackouts
economical and environmental pressure, and the limited
happened in North America as well as other countries in the past
few years also provide more and more incentive for scientists and investment in power-grid reinforcement make it necessary to
engineers in the power system circle to devote to the study on fully utilize the existing power assets, and thus leads to more
wide-area protection and control systems. In this paper, a challenge for the secure operation and the stability control of
comprehensive bibliographical survey is made on recent the power system. On the other hand, the fast development in
development in this field, and the survey is done from seven measurement, computation and communication makes it
relevant aspects.
possible to develop advanced protection and control systems.
Wide-area protection based on wide-area measurements is
Index Terms--Blackout, Hidden Failure, Phasor Measurement
Units, Wide-Area Protection developed, and deemed very promising.
Since 1997, much research work on wide-area protection
I. INTRODUCTION has been done, and a special group on wide-area protection
and emergency control was setup in the IEEE international
C ONVENTIONAL protections are placed in power
systems to automatically and rapidly isolate the fault
elements, so as to ensure the safety of humans and power
conference in 1998, to investigate how to utilize the wide-area
information to improve the emergency control [1].
In China, there are some special characteristics with the
components, and to guarantee the normal operation of the
topologies and operation modes of power systems, such as the
healthy parts. Faults are generally large disturbance to the
weak connections between different regional power systems,
power system, and may cause the system to breakdown or
centralized and security-first dispatch mechanisms. As a result,
even collapse due to overload, over/under frequency,
large blackout did not happen in the past [2]. The research in
over/under voltage, power swings, and so on, for example, the
this area is still very preliminary, and the focuses are on the
northeastern American blackout on August 14, 2003.
introduction of some concepts and architectures [1], [3]-[6]. In
Traditional automatic equipment is usually used to deal with
western countries, as the result of several blackouts, wide-area
these problems, and for this purpose, the abnormal operation
protection has attracted extensive attention since its birth, and
states must be detected before taking any control action.
much research work has been done.
However, in some extreme cases, if the system state
In this paper, a bibliographical survey of the latest research
deteriorates very quickly, serious blackout may happen before
and development in wide-area protection is presented. The
any action could be taken by automatic equipment. In addition,
survey is divided into seven sections with each one
in traditional automatic equipment and protection relays,
representing a subject closely relevant to this area, i.e.,
decisions are made based on local measurements only, and
definition and architectures of wide-area protection, wide-area
measurement technology, relay hidden failures, wide-area
* This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science conventional protection, wide-area stability protection,
Foundation of China (No. 50477029), Research Grant Council of Hong Kong
(No. PolyU 5214/03E) and Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
communication technology, and industrial applications.
Jian Xiao and Fushuan Wen are with the Department of Electrical
Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, II. DEFINITION AND ARCHITECTURES OF WIDE-AREA
China (e-mails: hsiao.matthew@gmail.com; fushuan.wen@gmail.com). PROTECTION
C.Y. Chung and K.P. Wong are with the Department of Electrical
Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong Up to now, there is not a so-called standard and widely
(e-mails: eecychun@polyu.edu.hk; eekpwong@polyu.edu.hk).

1­4244­0178­X/06/$20.00 ©2006 IEEE 1388 PSCE 2006

accepted definition of wide-area protection. Different
definitions could be found from different sources. Basically,
the existing proposals could be classified into two kinds. In
the first kind, only post-disturbance system protection is
involved [4], [7], while in the second one, the conventional
protection function is also included [1], [3]. A common point
of these two kinds is that they are both based on wide-area
measurement systems. A definition detailed below is
employed in this paper.
Wide-area protection is a new kind of protection systems
based on wide-area measurements, and it could coordinate
with conventional protections to isolate faulty electrical
components rapidly, reliably and accurately, to perform online
security analysis for the post-fault or post-disturbance system,
and to take some proper measures when necessary to prevent
the power system from outage or even blackout.
Since the requirements for a wide-area protection system
and the current technological levels vary among different
power corporations, the architecture for such a protect system
may be different. Three major design architectures are
discussed as follows [7]-[9]:
A. Enhancements to SCADA/EMS
When fast-evolving disturbance events occur, the existing
SCADA/EMS system may encounter some new problems.
Generally, it is quite difficult, if not impossible, for the system
operator to extract really important signals from the alarm
bursts, and some critical functions are unavailable in the
system. Therefore, the enhancements should be concentrated
on enforcing the abilities to filter, display and analyze
important signals, and adding the critical functions step by
step. The sychrophasor measurements all over a grid could be
provided by introducing Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs),
basically conventional RTUs equipped with a synchronizing
signal receiver. With these measurements, the accuracy of
state estimation could be improved to a great extent. In order
to calculate the power transfer margins under contingencies,
advanced algorithms and computation programs are needed to
be incorporated into the new SCADA system. Since the
possibilities of building new functions in the SCADA/EMS
system tend to be limited, it is better to provide them as “stand
alone” solutions.
B. “Flat Architecture” with System Protection Terminals
Modern protection devices or terminals have powerful
computing and communication capabilities. Through the
communication between them, synchronized measurements
from PMUs could be obtained at different locations in grids.
The protection terminals could be arranged in a decentralized
flat layout, such as a loop. As a result, more powerful, reliable,
sensitive, and robust wide-area protection systems could then
be designed. Even the communication system is partially or
fully out of work, actions could still be taken by employing
the local information. This ensures that the performance of the
wide-area protection system be at least not worse than the
conventional one. The bottleneck of the high requirement for
the center control parts in a centralized system could be
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avoided in this architecture.
C. Multilayered Architecture
The so-called multilayered architecture represents an
integrated solution. It integrates the functions of protection
devices and EMS. It generally consists of three layers as
detailed below.
The bottom layer consists of many PMUs with or without
additional protection functions, which are used to collect
synchrophasors. The middle layer includes several local
protection centers (LPCs), which involve the data
concentrating, protection and control functions. The top layer
is a system protection center (SPC), which coordinates the
LPCs. The inter-connected coordinated system forms a
defense plan. More details of the feature of each layer could
be found in [1], and the R&D of a wide-area stability and
voltage control system with this architecture, proposed by
Taylor et al, is described in detail in [10]. This kind of wide-
area protection systems will most likely be common in the
future.
III. WIDE-AREA PHASOR MEASUREMENT TECHNOLOGY
Phasors are basic tools for AC circuit analysis. Even when
a power system is not quite in a steady state, e.g. power swing,
as the variations of voltages and currents are relatively slow,
phasors may still be used to describe the behavior of a power
system [11]. As the dynamic behavior of the system can be
delineated by wide-area synchrophasors, system-wide
synchronizing phasor measurements are extensively applied in
power systems, such as state estimation, adaptive relaying,
online instability prediction, fault recording, disturbance
recording, and transmission and generation modeling
verification [11], [12], which could lead to further progress in
system planning, operation, control and protection, and
maintenance.
Serial comm.
port
GPS receiver
Filter
V
I A/D Microprocessor
Fig. 1. Phasor Measurement Unit
The devices used to measure synchronized phasors are
called PMUs as shown in Fig. 1 [11]. They are placed on
some selected locations, to measure real-time positive
sequence (and negative and zero sequence quantities, if
needed) voltages and currents of a power system with precise
time synchronization [8], and then send these data to a center
for comparison, evaluation and some other further processing.
A synchronizing signal is used in the PMU to tag the
measurements. More detailed description on synchronizing
sampling for phasor measurements in power systems,
including some applications as well as their required accuracy
of synchronization, methods for synchronized measurements,
and the reliability of measurement systems, could be found in
[13]. The latest IEEE standard for synchrophasors is described
in [14], which defines the synchronized phasor measurements
and a data communication protocol, including message
formats, examples, and supporting information, for
communicating data in a real-time system.
As for the sources of timing signals, some synchronization
signals used in traditional communications cannot meet the
requirement on the accuracy of synchronization in wide-area
phasor measurement in power systems. So it is recommended
in [11], [13], [14] that GPS may be the best alternative. GPS
was originally developed as a U.S. Department of Defense
radio-navigation system that has inherent availability,
redundancy, reliability, and accuracy, and can provide
continuous precise timing at better than 1-ms level, which
makes it very suitable for applications in synchronizing phasor
measurement systems. In addition, some other alternative
sources of precise synchronization signals are available, such
as GLONASS, a Russian system, Galileo, a European system
[8], and Beidou satellite navigation and position system, a
Chinese system [15].
Synchronized sampling and measurements can be
implemented in modern digital relays and some other
monitoring and control devices and systems, such as RTUs,
digital fault recorders (DFRs, fault locators, and sequence-of-
events (SOE) recorders [13]. However, it is mentioned in [16]
that all the existing devices usually use fast Fourier transform
(FFT) or its derivatives to measure the phasors, which is
unable to keep pace with the much faster responses of
microprocessors or power electronic devices. With the
complexity of FFT computations, the fastest computations can
be made in 10ms with low accuracy. When accuracy is vital,
measurements would need to be taken at 40-ms intervals or
more, even at 0.1 s or more in some cases, e.g., to ascertain
changes of frequency. A new transform method based on
space vectors, which could supplant FFTs and fit the
response-speed requirements in synchronized measurements,
is proposed in [17].
Considering the high expense of PMUs and that of the
communication devices between them, a full installation of
PMUs in a large power system is too expensive and
unnecessary. Therefore, it is essential to find an optimal PMU
placement (OPP), i.e., a scheme with minimum PMUs
meeting the requirement on observability in a monitoring
system. By far, many publications have discussed the OPP
problem in state estimation applications [18]-[28]. However,
only the genetic algorithm in [20] has taken into account
different network topologies, and the methods in [22]-[25]
have considered the cases of loss of a single PMU with certain
redundancy. Most other methodologies are based on a given
network topology, and do not involve any redundancy, which
is deemed essential for providing sufficient data for situations
with PMU outage, communication failures or other failures, so
as to ensure the observability of a critical part of a supervised
power system under any operation conditions, such as
network islanding, and outages of lines or generators, as
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clarified in [29]. In addition, two numerical algorithms for the
OPP problem, under the assumption that the installation of
PMUs is mainly motivated by wide-area monitoring and
control of an interconnected system, are proposed in [30],
aiming to maximize the overall sensor response while
minimizing the correlation among sensor outputs so as to
minimize the redundant information provided by multiple
sensors. Meanwhile, it is also indicated that some mandatory
locations such as tie-line buses located at the boundaries of
electrically coherent areas and large generator step-up
transformers should be included in the OPP to avoid
information black-holes. In [31], an algorithm for OPP based
on coherency characteristics of rotor angles as well as bus
voltage is proposed. Several critical generator-clusters are
classified according to some possible critical modes of
transient angle stability identified by extended equal area
criterion (EEAC), and all possible critical bus-clusters for
transient voltage stability are distinguished by assessing
transient voltage stability and transient voltage-dip tolerance.
Then a PMU is placed at one of the power stations in each
generator-cluster and one of the buses in each bus-cluster, and
hence the angle and voltage stability for power systems could
be identified with this OPP. As the SCADA system currently
cannot be technologically replaced by a Wide-Area
Measurement System (WAMS), which is based on the widely
distributed PMUs in power systems, a practical method for
OPP is proposed in [32]. With this method, data from the
SCADA can be synchronized with the accurate data from
PMUs, and the data accuracy can be further improved by state
estimation.
To design a three-layered architecture for a wide-area
protection system, the first step generally aims at achieving
wide-area monitoring capability. For this purpose, WAMS is
widely employed. In WAMS applications, many PMUs are
connected to a personal computer called data concentrator, so
the dynamic behavior of a power system could be obtained on
the concentrator, so as to access and maintain the system
stability, and to provide a platform for preventing the power
system from overloads, power swings, and voltage, angle, or
frequency instability. Starting from a WAMS, a data
concentrator could be turned into a Hub-based local protection
center (LPC) by implementing control and protection
functions in it [8]. Up to now, some WAMSs have been
developed and put into service in China, and a detailed
description could be found in [99]. A practical WAMS system
in the East China Power Grid is described in [33], including
its architecture, functions and operational experience, and an
advanced developing wide-area monitoring analysis
protection control system (WAMAP) is also introduced,
especially about its structure and functions. The function of
data integration and on-line analysis, which could offer real-
time and supplementary decision information of power grids
for dispatchers, will be reinforced. M. Larsson et al has
described the platform architecture, requirements and benefits
[29], and its operating experience and perspectives [34] in
detail, and made a comprehensive overview on some basic
design aspects like the proposed platform, algorithms, system that become vulnerable to other HFs following the
availability of hardware, and cost worth assessment [35] for a redistribution of network flows after the initial contingency, is
wide-area monitoring and control system. proposed in [39], and a methodology for HF identification
based on PEFD presented. In [37], [41], based on the
IV. HIDDEN FAILURES (HFS) IN RELAYS combination of the magnitude of the RVs and the
It is well-known that relay protection systems play a very consequences of unwanted disconnections caused by HFs, the
important role in ensuring the secure and stable operation of a concept of Index of Severity (IS) is proposed. This index is
power system and preventing disastrous events from benefit to identify the critical protections. Regarding the
happening. However, failures in protection systems may lead countermeasures, changing the operational logic of protection
to very serious consequence in a power system. A survey of systems from the OR logic to a voting protocol is discussed in
significant disturbances reported by North American Electric [40], and the communication infrastructure used also
Reliability Council (NERC) from 1984 to 1988 shows that discussed. However, in these papers, the transient processes
protection relays are involved more or less in 75% of major are not considered in vulnerability analysis, so the system
disturbances [36]. Another detailed disturbance report by behavior cannot be accurately depicted, and hence the
NERC from 1988-1996 concluded that double contingencies corresponding results may not provide the appropriate
(N-2) have contributed significantly to the wide spread of information [42]. Then a new VI, Integrated System
initial disturbances, and about 70% of the contingencies are Vulnerability (ISV), is introduced. It not only involves the
caused by relay mis-operations, particularly due to HFs [37]. indices in [37], [40], [41], but also the security index, named
A definition of HF is presented in [38]: a permanent defect Probability of Stability (POS), i.e., the probability for the
that will cause a relay or a relay system to incorrectly and system to maintain synchronism in a set of contingency
inappropriately remove a circuit element(s) as a direct simulations. In addition, a detailed description of HFs and
consequence of another switching event. The defect must be their simulation methods and models in power systems are
capable of being monitored. It is clear that “failure to operate”, presented in [42]-[45], including the non-sequential Monte
instant defects or faults (e.g. an insulation failure), and failures Carlo simulation used to calculate all reliability indices [42],
that cannot be monitored or detected are not HFs. This the “importance sampling” technique to alter the occurrence
definition has been extended in [39]: a HF is a defect from probabilities of rare events [43], a random search algorithm
which any of the protection system elements may suffer and it based on power system heuristics for fast rare-event
is applicable to potential transformers (PTs), current simulation of consecutive relaying malfunctions [44], and a
transformers (CTs), cables, lugs and connectors, all kinds of DC load flow model for HF simulation [45].
relays, communication channels, etc. These defects, by The HFs can not be fully avoided and it is only possible to
themselves, will not produce an immediate action on the reduce their frequency of occurrence and their impacts on
relays but remain undetected until some other system events power system operation with all the methods and
occur. HFs in protection occur as a result of two phenomena: a countermeasures mentioned above. Therefore, further
protection element functionality defect (PEFD, including solutions in the wide-area conventional protections to be
defects caused by hardware failures, outdated settings, or described later are necessary, such as blocking the protection
human errors), and the logical arrangement of devices with the relays when an external fault is identified based on the wide-
PEFD [39], [40]. area measurements.
HFs will occur as a result of some unusual disturbances,
such as nearby faults, overloads, shortages in reactive power, V. WIDE-AREA CONVENTIONAL PROTECTION
or reverse power flows. i.e., they only present their impacts to The conventional protection mentioned in this part refers to
a power system under stressed states. HFs are rarely exposed, protection systems used to isolate and clear faults. Generally,
but once they are trigged, they will cause relay malfunction, the existing protective relays operate based on local
which can worsen an emergent power system state, and measurements, and remote data are seldom employed. The
eventually evolves as a wide-area disturbance [8], [36]. introduction of FACTS devices and the evolving of
Studies on the HFs in protection and their impacts on competitive electricity markets lead to more complex power
power system operation are presented in [37]-[42], and some grids and frequent changes of their configurations and power
countermeasures are proposed. The concepts of Region of flow patterns. Therefore, it is very difficult for protective
Vulnerability (RV), an area within the reach or setting of a relays to accurately locate faults. Particularly for the backup
relay or relay scheme which may cause it to mis-operate, and protections, it is very hard to regulate their reach and time
Vulnerability Index (VI), a numerical value representing the settings, so they may not be able to locate and isolate faults
relative importance of each RV, are proposed in [38]. Through precisely when the primary protections are out of work.
the HF analysis with these concepts, critical protection To solve the inherent defects in the conventional
systems, which have a high VI, are identified, and protections, wide-area conventional protection schemes are
countermeasures to add HF monitoring and control systems proposed, and some architecture designs and algorithms are
for critical protections suggested. Another concept of Areas of proposed in many papers [46]-[60]. As wide-area
Consequence, which represents the regions of the power measurements are adopted, long time-delay is no longer

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necessary to ensure the coordinated selection between primary
protections and backup ones, while it is necessary in the
conventional protection systems. As a result, the delay for
isolating faults by backup protections could be significantly
shortened. Wide-area differential backup protection schemes
are described in [46]-[49], and an experimental examination is
reported in [47]. These protection schemes not only decrease
the action delay for backup protection, but also minimize the
outage area for remote backup protection with a tripping
signal sent through a communication system. A multi-zone
differential protection system, which combines the multi-zone
operating features of a distance scheme with the features of a
differential unit-protection scheme, is proposed in [48], [49],
and the problem of data loss could also be dealt with in the
system. A wide-area differential backup protection scheme for
shipboard applications is presented in [50], and a multi-agent
based wide-area current differential protection system is
proposed in [51]. The dynamic online partitioning of primary
and backup zones is implemented with an expert system, and
the coordination among the agents helps to realize the primary
and backup protection for the whole power network. However,
the settings of this kind of differential schemes are liable to
the line-charging currents for long lines and the fault current
variation with high grounding resistance. A wide-area backup
protection expert system (BPES) and its application are
described in [52]-[55]. The information required by the BPES
includes the network topology, the open/closed states of
circuit breakers, and the operational response of the existing
protection relays in the substation the BPES installed, and in
several adjacent substations. The fault could be located with
the value of action factor (AF), which defines the
contributions of a single activated element, or a component
that involves multiple activated elements, to the fault location
process [52], and a sequential tripping strategy is proposed in
[54]. This BPES could avoid unnecessary trips, due to hidden
failure or overloading, by locking the tripping signals of
traditional backup protection relays[53], [55], and a concept of
certainty factor (CF), which can be derived from AFs, is
presented in [54] to handle the uncertainties associated with
the incorrect operation of protection relays or the loss of
communicated information. Other wide-area backup
protection schemes, using distributed line model and two-
terminal synchronized phasors and their angle difference, are
proposed in [56], [57]. With the direction comparison of the
phasors, internal or external faults could be discriminated. The
only difference between the two schemes is the directional
components adopted. In [58]-[60], a wide-area agent model
for cooperative protection systems is described in detail
including the definition, classification of relay agents, system
architecture and simulation.
All the wide-area conventional protection schemes are
based on global information and their performance depends on
the reliability of communication systems. Up to now, only
simulation work has been done to demonstrate their validity,
and no practical applications reported.
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VI. WIDE-AREA STABILITY PROTECTION
Traditionally, the protection system used to prevent power
systems from large disturbances after fault isolation is called
Special Protection System (SPS), or Remedial Action Scheme
(RAS) [4], [8], or occasionally System Protection Scheme [7].
In the NERC planning standard, a SPS is defined as a
system designed to detect abnormal system conditions and
take preplanned, corrective actions (other than the isolation of
faulted elements) to provide acceptable system performance
[8]. Another similar definition from IEEE/CIGRÉ is: a system
designed to detect a particular system condition that is known
to cause unusual stress, including instability, overload, or
voltage collapse etc., on the power system, and for which
preplanned remedial actions, such as opening of one or more
lines, tripping of generators, ramping of HVDC power
transfers, intentional shedding of load, in a controlled manner
are considered necessary. Hence, common types of line or
apparatus protection are not SPSs [61]. A survey of the
applications, costs, performance, and reliability of the existing
SPSs is also presented in [61].
Many of the existing SPSs, in particular those that have
been in use for many years, analyze only the local data, so
their performance is severely limited [62]. With the
continuous development of communication and measurement
technologies, extensive concerns arise in PMU-based wide-
area stability protections, which are usually called System
Protection Schemes or Wide-Area Protection Systems. A
report in [63] discusses several topics associated with SPSs in
detail, including the historical background, design criteria,
future needs, and the requirements of software, hardware and
communication. The widely applied SPSs take control
measures only for predetermined events. However, only single
and double emergency are considered in system planning for a
complicated power system, without involving the masses of
multiple emergency that may lead to blackouts. A new
horizon for handling unpredictable disturbances well beyond
the (n-2) disturbance threshold, is proposed in [64] for system
protection schemes. The wide-area stability protections are
usually designed with this philosophy.
Research work and discussions have been made in many
publications on building wide-area protection systems for
avoiding frequency, voltage, and rotor angular instability,
which are defined in [65].
Under frequency load shedding (UFLS) is widely used to
avoid frequency instability. The primary disadvantage of this
scheme is the lag response to disturbances, so measures could
be taken only when the frequency decreases to lower than the
settings. Moreover, additional drawbacks of ULFS are:
difficulty in modifying the settings and poor adaptability to
various system conditions. Preventive wide-area UFLS
schemes, which give quicker response to frequency instability
with timely load shedding schemes than traditional ones, are
proposed in [66], [67].
Voltage instability has become a major threat for power
system operation in the past two decades [68]. Then much
research has been done in wide-area protections for voltage
stability [70]-[72]. A wide-area protection system based on the
SCADA system against long-term voltage collapse in southern
Sweden is introduced in [69]. Although it does not belong to
wide-area protections, the idea of using wide-area information
to save power system from voltage instability is first proposed
in this work. In [70], a dynamic voltage stability predication
algorithm based on wide-area measurements is proposed, with
which a more precise and earlier detection of voltage
instability becomes possible. Therefore, the solution to long-
term voltage instability is better than that of conventional
SPSs. The algorithm and the system design are described in
detail, and the system to deal with the short-term voltage
instability either acts still as the conventional protection or
performs predefined actions, because there is not enough time
to perform the prediction. A coordinated system protection
scheme against voltage collapse based on model-predictive
control and heuristic tree search is described in [71]. When
generator controls are involved, this system could greatly
decrease the unnecessary load shedding by utilizing the
reactive capability of remote generators. A new concept for
monitoring voltage instability with the characteristics of
voltage-sensitive loads as well as the reactive-power reserves
of generators taken into account is presented in [72]. Based on
the local voltage and the current phasor measurements as well
as system-wide information on reactive-power reserves, the
algorithm, to determine the onset point of voltage collapse,
suggests deploying control actions, such as load shedding, in
case the stability margin is small and the reactive-power
reserves are almost exhausted. The system is supposed to be
added on top of the existing control schemes for better
coordination.
Rotor angle instability could be categorized as small-
disturbance (or small-signal) rotor angle instability and large-
disturbance rotor angle instability or transient instability [65].
Small-disturbance instability often appears as continuous or
even evolving oscillations due to insufficient damping. It may
affect a small part of a power system, called local-mode
oscillation, which is usually associated with oscillations of a
single power plant against the rest, or a wide area even the
whole system, called interarea-mode oscillation, which
generally involves oscillations of a group of generators in one
area against a group of generators in another [65],[73]. The
control measures for the former are relatively simple, and a
conventional power system stabilizer (PSS) may be sufficient
for solving the problem. However, the ones for the latter are
rather complicated, and a widely accepted method is still not
available. Therefore, extensive concerns arise in this area. A
WAMS-based interarea damping control loop for generators’
excitation controllers in a simple two-area four-machine
system is described in [74], and its design principles,
implementation, and simulation are presented. Simulation
results demonstrate its effectiveness and potential for practical
applications. A new two-level PSS design is described in [75],
and the first level is used to damp local-mode oscillations
using the local speed signals, while the second level to damp
interarea-mode ones using additional global signals, either the
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tie-line active-power or the speed-difference signals. The
global signals have also been employed in SVCs for damping
enhancement for the interarea modes. A group leaded by
Innocent Kamwa has carried out a series of research work on
wide-area control for interarea modes [76]-[79]. The state-
space system identification technique is first applied to build a
large-scale small-signal model in the Hydro-Quebec’s system,
and then used to design global stabilizing controllers [76].
These PSSs have two control loops, a speed sensitive local
loop operating in the usual way, and a WAMS-based global
loop using a single differential frequency signal between two
suitably selected areas. The tuning and coordination technique
for the complex multiple controllers and their impacts on
power system operation are also discussed in the paper. Then,
extensive studies for this control system are carried out in [77],
and specifically the decentralized/hierarchical architecture,
system modeling, tuning and coordination technique, and
simulation and assessment of impacts on the system are
described in more detail. However, the processing and
communication delay is not discussed. A detailed analysis of
the control loop selection is presented in [78], and a
straightforward and easy-to-implement methodology for loop
selection proposed. Two complementary measures are
employed in the measurement and control-signal selection.
One is the geometric measure for maximizing the
controllability and observability of interarea modes, the other
is the singular-value based total interaction measure for
minimizing the interactions between the local or global loops
at the interarea natural frequency. An assessment on wide-area
damping control over local control is presented in [79]
through numerical simulations of a three-area test system and
a revised Hydro-Quebec network. The results suggest that the
wide-area damping control has obvious technological
advantages. The transmission, exchange and processing of
various signals in WAMS will result in some time-delay, and
this often seriously affects the stability controllers with these
signals as inputs [80]. A Remote Feedback Controller (RFC)
for wide-area stability control is designed in [81]. The
application of Linear Matrix Inequalities to the tuning and
optimization of the controller makes it be able to deal with the
time delay in its input signals. It has been proved that the
controller can improve the damping of interarea modes as well
as increase the power transfer capability between different
areas.
Transient instability is also called generator’s out-of-step.
Most of the operating out-of-step tripping systems are based
on local measurements, which makes it be unable to know
what happens in other areas of the power system and then
unable to minimize the impact of the disturbance. With the
advancement of the measuring technologies, the absolute
phase angle difference between two distant buses can be
measured with an accuracy of tenths of an electrical degree, so
the out-of-step problems could be well predicted and solved.
Moreover, information of online generation output and load
demands from WAMS undoubtedly helps to balance better the
generation and demands during islanding, as well as to
minimize generation and load shedding for maintaining
stability when the power system is subjected to main
disturbances [82]. An adaptive out-of-step protection
developed in USA long time ago using wide-area
measurements is introduced in [83], and then the system
design, field installation, and experience of this protection
system are summarized in [84], together with the prospect of
its future applications in a multi-machine system. Ref. [85]
presents a feasibility study of adding synchronized phasor
measurements into Acceleration Trend Relays (ATRs) for
better selectivity of the generator dropping controls at a power
plant in USA. In addition, real-time prediction of transient
instability based on wide-area measurements is discussed in
many publications [86]-[90]. A piecewise constant-current
load equivalent (PCCLE) technique is proposed in [86]. A
novel two-level fuzzy hyper-rectangular composite neural
network (FHRCNN) based method is proposed in [87] for
prediction of fast-transient stability swings from a short
window of post-fault phasor measurements. In [88], the
research work of [86] is extended. Not only the PCCLE
technique is presented, but two techniques, i.e. piecewise
constant transfer admittance equivalent (PCTAE) and
Implicitly Decoupled PQ Integration (IDPQI) are also
proposed. PCCLE and PCTAE techniques can eliminate the
algebraic equations by approximating the load flow solution
piecewisely, while IDPQI can reduce the computing time for
integrating a differential/algebraic equation set describing a
postfault dynamic system. Test results on two sample power
systems show that one of these three techniques may be
selected based on the characteristics of the studied power
system to provide quicker and more accurate stability
prediction. A new autoregressive-model-based out-of-step
prediction logic is described in [89]. Two kinds of time-series
data, i.e. the phase differences of voltages between two
substations and rotor angles of generators that are relative to
the phase of the terminal voltage, are used to identify the
autoregressive model. A measure for angle stability margin
assessment called branch impedance trajectory sensitivity
(BITS), i.e. trajectory sensitivity of the rotor angles to the
branch impedances, is proposed in [90]. As the search space
for computing the BITS is huge for a multi-machine power
system, a three-tier hierarchy of norms, including branch norm,
fault norm and system norm, is proposed. The first two norms
are used to solve the relay ranking and fault ranking
respectively, so as to identify the critical relays and faults that
have to be investigated for power swings, and the magnitude
as well as the change rate of the system norm could be used to
decide whether a swing is stable or unstable. A fast wide-area
remedial control scheme against transient instabilities, which
uses an EHV tie-line based equal area criterion of One-
Machine-Infinite-Bus (OMIB) system to determine the timing
and amount of remedial control actions, is presented in [91],
and a coordinated defense plan against transient instability
applied in southeastern France is described in [92] with its
principles, performance objectives and system architecture
included.
1394
Although the majority of the research work done up to now
is concerned about a single class of stability problems, a
comprehensive wide-area stability protection and control
scheme for multiple kinds of instabilities appears demanding,
because one kind of instability may lead to another. A
proposal for constructing this comprehensive system is
presented in [16], and some requirements for a wide-area
protection system are outlined. The functional and
technological requirements, process, and testing plan for
designing and implementing a wide-area SPS is described in
detail in [93].
VII. COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY
A reliable and fast communication system is an
indispensable infrastructure of a wide-area protection system.
To build a fast, robust and reliable communication network,
several very important factors to be considered are media,
communication protocols, and topology of the network.
Currently, a combination of analog and digital communication
systems, consisting of power line carrier, radio, microwave,
leased phone lines, satellite systems, and optical fiber, is often
utilized in protection systems [8].
The fiber optics is found in more and more applications in
power systems, not only for its good characteristics, but two
potential benefits of optic communication technologies
applied in power systems: a composite ground wire and
optical fiber (OPGW) based wide-area optic network that
could be constructed with the natural feeder corridors of high-
voltage networks, and the ability of optical fiber to extend to
houses along with distribution networks [94]. The typical
communication architecture is a combination of trees, rings
and meshes, with a ring as the backbone. Self-healing
capability is a distinctive feature of a ring topology, and it
could greatly increase the reliability of the communication
system. The main protocols used in an optical fiber system are
synchronous optical networks (Sonet/SDH) and the
asynchronous transfer mode (ATM). Wide-band Ethernet is
also an alternative in non-backbone systems [8], and the most
widely used Internet Protocol (IP) is employed as a network
transmission protocol. A fiber-optic communication system
based on the combination of Ethernet and ATM is presented
in [95], and it has been successfully applied in Henan Power
Grid in China. An IP-based communication system described
in [96] is applied in both wide-area current differential
protections and wide-area out-of-step protections and built on
an ATM backbone network. Performance evaluations on
transmission delay and packet loss suggest the applicability of
such technologies. In [97], it is mentioned that the standard IP
is inappropriate for wide-area protection systems, and the
constrained partial flooding algorithm and static priority
queuing technology are proposed to solve the data loss and
delay problems for improving the robustness and speed.
The message frame formats, including a received command
frame and three types of transmitted frames, i.e. data,
configuration, and header, can be found in [14]. Due to Space
limitation, only a common frame format is shown in Fig. 2,
without detailed explanations, and the data words are different
for each of the four message types.
first SYNC FRAMESIZE IDCODE
transmitted
MSB 2 LSB 2 2
SOC FRACSEC DATA 1 DATA 2
4 4
last
… DATA N CHK
transmitted
2 “Current Status and Prospect of Wide-Area Protection (Dynamic Stability
Fig. 2. Example of frame transmission order
VIII. EXAMPLES OF WIDE-AREA PROTECTION APPLICATIONS
In most research publications mentioned above, case
studies or experimental simulations are included [46], [48],
[52], [56], [67], [70]-[72], [74], [76], [77]-[79], [81], [85]-[91]
to demonstrate the validity of the systems. Some wide-area
protection systems have found in practical applications [92],
[98].
A wide-area stability and voltage control system (WACS)
described in [10] is worthy of special attention. WACS
provides a flexible platform for rapid implementation of
generator tripping and reactive power compensation switching
for transient stability and voltage support in a large power
system. In [10], a detailed description of the system design
(including measurement, communications, and control),
algorithms, and initial online implementation is presented. The
system is tested by a replay of a large real event, a short
circuit occurred near the Palo Verde Nuclear Plant, in June
2004. Since March 2003, WACS has been installed in a
laboratory, and its commercial implementation is now under
consideration. Some practical wide-area protection
applications in North America, France, Romania, and Spain
are briefly introduced in [4], [8], [62]. In addition, an out-of-
step defense plan implemented in France is described in [92],
and the implementation and operational experience of a wide-
area special protection scheme on Salt River Project in
California, USA is outlined in [98].
IX. CONCLUDING REMARKS
Wide-area protection is currently a research hotspot in
power systems, and appears very promising for wide
industrial applications. Much effort has been made in the past
10 years or so, and significant progress has already been
achieved, as described in this paper. However, there is still a
big gap between current research status and industrial
applications. In fact, only some simple forms of wide-area
protections have been applied in a few power systems around
the globe, and many problems in this area still need to be
solved, such as the design of a comprehensive defense plan
which could handle all possible kinds of instabilities, and the
portability of wide area protection systems for various
network topologies of power systems.
1395
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XI. BIOGRAPHIES
Jian Xiao received his BE and ME degrees in electrical engineering from
Wuhan University, China, in 1996 and 1999, respectively. He worked as an
engineer in Nanjing Automation Research Institute (NARI) of State Power Co. of
China from 1999 to 2001, and then as a software engineer in several corporations,
mainly in the areas of communications, monitoring and control systems. Since
2005, he has been pursuing his Ph.D. in South China University of Technology.
His main research interests are fault diagnosis, control and protection in power
systems.
Fushuan Wen received his BE and ME degrees from Tianjin University, China,
in 1985 and 1988, respectively, and PhD from Zhejiang University, China, in 1991,
all in electrical engineering. He joined the faculty of Zhejiang Unversity, China, in
1991, and has been a full professor there since 1997. Since 2004, he has been a
University Distinguished Professor in South China University of Technology. His
current research interests are in power industry restructuring, power system fault
diagnosis and restoration strategies, as well as artificial intelligence applications in
power systems.
C.Y. Chung (M'01) received the B.Eng. degree (with First Class Honors) and
the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from The Hong Kong Polytechnic
University, Hong Kong, China. After his Ph.D. graduation, he worked in the
Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB,
Canada, and Powertech Labs, Inc., Surrey, BC, Canada. Currently, he is an
Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, The Hong Kong
Polytechnic University. His research interests include power system
stability/control, computational intelligence applications and power markets.
K.P. Wong (M'87, SM'90, F'02) obtained his M.Sc and Ph.D. degrees from the
University of Manchester, Institute of Science and Technology, in 1972 and 1974,
respectively, and in 2001 he obtained the higher doctorate DEng degree from the
same university. Prof. Wong was with The University of Western Australia since
1974. He is currently a Chair Professor and the Head of Department of Electrical
Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Prof. Wong received three
Sir John Madsen Medals (1981, 1982 and 1988) from the Institution of Engineers
Australia, the 1999 Outstanding Engineer Award from IEEE Power Chapter
Western Australia and the 2000 IEEE Third Millennium Award. He has published
numerous research papers in power systems and in the applications of artificial
intelligence and evolutionary computation to power system planning and
operations. His current research interests include evolutionary optimization in
power, power market analysis, power system planning and operation in deregulated
environment, power quality. He is a Fellow of IEEE, IEE, HKIE and IEAust.