IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - May/June 2014 - 51

Other Synchrophasor Projects
The power plant model validation work funded by
the BPA and the DOE is one of many synchrophasor
projects taking place across the country, and it demonstrates how the DOE can effectively advance a technology while sharing costs with industry. Four example
research and development projects that the DOE is
cost-sharing are described below:
* Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University is developing analytic tools and calibration
techniques for measurement devices to implement an innovative synchrophasor-based tracking system to monitor the state of the electric
grid. The techniques will better diagnose the
sources of network unbalances and identify
actions needed to remedy them.
* The University of California is developing tools
using synchrophasor measurements to reduce
the likelihood of false and inappropriate triggers
of transmission system circuit breakers that protectively shut down electrical flow and can contribute to cascading blackouts.
* Georgia Tech Research Corporation is developing a tool for electrical system operators to continuously track, in real time, the condition and
stability of an electric power system.
* The Electric Power Research Institute is developing a novel synchrophasor-based system that
can be installed at control centers to monitor
grid conditions and improve grid reliability. The
system will be able to perform real-time reliability monitoring, near-real-time event replay, and
post-event analysis that will allow operators to
better track conditions and thereby take corrective action when needed.

in fact, as the grand coulee example above demonstrated, the DOe-cerTS/bPa team is well on its way to
realizing this vision. a comprehensive timeline of the project is given in figure 6. Other projects (see "Other Synchrophasor Projects") are pursuing similar goals.

Conclusion
by leveraging resources from the DOe, including funding and
expertise, and working with a number of collaborators, including ge and cerTS, the bPa has led the creation of a supplemental model validation improvement option that generator
operators can use in most scenarios. Using PMUs to continuously record data at generator points of interconnection

may/june 2014

helps generator and system operators confirm that the power
plant model being used in the overall model of the power grid
exhibits the same response as the data being recorded. This
improves the power grid models, ultimately reducing outages,
increasing reliability, and reducing costs.

For Further Reading
D. n. Kosterev, c. W. Taylor, and W. a. Mittelstadt, "Model
validation for the august 10, 1996 WScc system outage,"
IEEE Trans. Power Systems, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 967-979,
aug. 1999.
l. Pereira, J. Undrill, D. Kosterev, D. Davies, and S.
Patterson, "a new thermal governor modeling approach
in Wecc," IEEE Trans. Power Systems, vol. 18, no. 2, pp.
819-829, May 2003.
Western electricity coordinating council. (2006). generating unit model validation policy, Salt lake city, UT:
Western electricity coordinating council, n.d. [Online].
available:
http://www.oatioasis.com/PSei/PSeidocs/
gTTf_2006-05_generating_Unit_Model_validation_
Policy.pdf
J. Undrill, l. Pereira, D. Kosterev, S. Patterson, D. Davies, S. yang, and b. agrawal, "generating unit model validation: Wecc lessons and moving forward," in Proc. IEEE
Power Energy Society General Meeting, July 2009, pp. 1-5.
D. Kosterev, "hydro-turbine model validation in Pacific northwest," IEEE Trans. Power Systems, vol. 19, no. 2
pp. 1144-1149, May 2004.
c. huitt, D. Kosterev, and J. Undrill. (2004, nov. 11).
Dynamic monitoring is cost effective for Transalta, bPa,
Electric Light and Power [Online]. available: http://www.
elp.com/articles/print/volume-82/issue-7/departments/
info-technology/dynamic-monitoring-is-cost-effective-fortransalta-bpa.html
U.S. Department of energy. (2009, aug.). DOe provides $4.3 million to improve reliability of the U.S. electric
grid [Online]. available: http://energy.gov/oe/articles/doeprovides-43-million-improve-reliability-us-electric-grid
Dynamics Data for Modeling and Simulation of the Interconnected Transmission System, north american electric
reliability corporation Standard MOD-012-0, feb. 2005.

Biographies
Philip Overholt is with the U.S. Department of energy,
Washington, D.c.
Dmitry Kosterev is with the bonneville Power administration, Portland, Oregon.
Joseph Eto is with the lawrence berkeley national laboratory, berkeley, california.
Steve Yang is with the bonneville Power administration,
Portland, Oregon.
Bernard Lesieutre is with the University of WisconsinMadison.
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