Application of wide area measurement systems to islanding detection of bulk power systems

• Published in: IEEE transactions on power systems Vol. 28; no. 2; pp. 2006 - 2015
• Main Authors: Zhenzhi Lin, Tao Xia, Yanzhu Ye, Ye Zhang, Lang Chen, Yilu Liu, Tomsovic, Kevin, Bilke, Terry, Fushuan Wen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01-05-2013; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Electric potential; Electric power distribution; Electric power systems; Electricity distribution; Event detection; frequency disturbance recorder; Frequency measurement; islanding detection; Load shedding; Methods; Oscillations; phasor measurement unit; Phasor measurement units; Phasors; Thresholds; Uninterruptible power supply; Voltage; wide area measurement system; Wide area measurements
• ISSN: 0885-8950; 1558-0679
• DOI: 10.1109/TPWRS.2013.2250531

A fast islanding detection tool can help power dispatchers monitor and control power system operations. Frequency monitoring network (FNET) is a low cost and quickly deployable wide-area phasor measurement system at the distribution system level. The frequency disturbance recorder (FDR) in FNET is actually a single-phase phasor measurement unit (PMU) installed at ordinary 120 V outlets in the sense that it measures the voltage phase angle, amplitude, and frequency from a single-phase voltage source. Based on the data collected by the FDRs deployed in the North American power grid, two islanding detection methods, the frequency difference method and the change of angle difference method, are proposed. The nine real cases recorded, including islanding cases, generation trip cases, load shedding cases and oscillation cases, are presented to verify the proposed methods of islanding detection. Sensitivity analysis on the thresholds of the frequency deviation and angle deviation is done based on the real measurement data for obtaining the insensitive interval of two thresholds. The results show that the proposed methods can correctly detect power system islanding, and will not be falsely triggered by generation trips, load shedding and system oscillations.