Wide area monitoring and control

Today's interconnected power system is deregulated for wholesale power transfers. In 1996 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission provided open access of the transmission network to utilities. Since then utilities are transferring power over long distances to bring reliable and economical electric supply to their customers. As the number of wholesale power transactions taking place over an interconnected system are increasing, system operators in control areas are forced to monitor the grid on a large scale to operate it reliably. Before scheduling such a large scale power transactions, it is necessary to make sure that such transaction will not violate system operating steady state security limits such as transmission line-flow limits and bus voltage limits. The ideal solution to this problem is to consider entire interconnected system as one system to monitor it. However, this solution is technically expensive if not impossible and hindered by confidentiality issues.;This research aims to develop tools that help the system operators to operate the deregulated power grid reliably. State estimation is the tool used by today's energy control centers to develop a base case of the system in real-time, which is further used to study the impact of disturbances and power transactions on static and dynamic security limits of the system. In order to monitor the deregulated power system, a wide area state estimator is required. In this dissertation a two-level approach to achieve such a solution is presented. This way, individual areas are allowed to run their own state estimator, without exchanging any real-time data with neighbor areas. The central coordinator then coordinates state estimator results available from individual areas to bring them to a global reference. This dissertation also presents the application of measurements from GPS synchronized phasor measurement units to improve accuracy of two-level state estimator.;In addition to monitoring, system operators also need to determine that if they can allow the scheduled transaction to take place. This requires them to determine transfer capability of the system in real-time. This dissertation presents new iterative transfer capability algorithm which can be used in real-time. As an interconnected system is deregulated and the power transactions are taking place through many control areas, a system wide solution of transfer capability is required. This dissertation presents a two-level framework similar to one used for state estimation to achieve multi-area transfer capability solution. In general, the research work carried out would help in improving power system reliability and operation.