23 September 2009

Synchrophasor data will assess health of grid

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) received 300 submissions to modernize the power grid, and only four got the money, with Virginia Tech receiving two of the four grants.

Two of the nation’s icons in the electric power field are Arun Phadke and James Thorp, recipients of the 2008 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering. Phadke and Thorp will each serve as the Virginia Tech principal investigator on two unique projects, as well as assist each other. The two projects total $ 2.6 million.

Collaborators for decades, Thorp and Phadke have developed a number of advances that strengthen the electric utility industry’s ability to prevent power grid blackouts, or to make them less intense and easier to recover from.

According to the DOE, Phadke and Thorp’s newly funded work will now advance technologies that rely on the exchange of synchrophasor data among electric utility companies and other electricity entities.

The DOE explained synchrophasors are high-speed, real-time synchronized measurement devices used to diagnose the health of the electricity grid.

With synchrophasor data, electric utilities can use existing power more efficiently and push more power through the grid while reducing the likelihood of power disruptions like blackouts.

Like an up-to-the-minute weather map for the nation’s electricity grid, synchrophasor information enhances the ability to predict possible disruptions in time to remedy them.

This new research will build upon a recently completed three-year project funded by the California Energy Commission through the Public Interest Energy. Its findings indicated the use of wide area synchrophasor measurements in electrical power systems can be of significant value to power companies.

These measurements can reduce the likelihood of false trips by protection systems and lessen the likelihood of contributing to a cascading effect.

For related information, go to www.isa.org/link/powerIND.