IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - September/October 2015 - 19

By Vahid Madani, Jay Giri,
Dmitry Kosterev, Damir Novosel,
and Dan Brancaccio

Power grids have become more comPlex to Plan and oPerate. with grid
changes arise new challenges: renewable generation, energy conservation, electric vehicles, energy storage, and load growth. challenges facing the electric industry today include balancing capacity, reliability,
economics, environmental, and other public objectives. recent cascading outages have demonstrated the
challenges faced when operating a system near its limits. these outages over the last few years have had
large social and economic impacts. in 2012, an outage in india affected over 620 million people. in 2009, a
blackout in brazil and Paraguay impacted 87 million. in 2011, a power blackout affecting 3 million people
in southern california and mexico lasted 12 hours and was estimated to have cost over Us$100 million in
lost revenue. it is a balancing act to meet today's electricity consumer expectations in a changing landscape.
technologies such as synchronized measurements are a promising tool to improve grid reliability, performance, and security to meet today's consumer expectations. these new technologies do
not, however, fully replace the need for investments in infrastructure.
the time synchronization of measurements is not a new concept or application in power systems.
as power system and telecommunication technologies have advanced, the time frame of measured and
communicated synchronized information has been steadily reduced from minutes, to seconds, milliseconds, and now microseconds. at present, phasor measurement units (PmUs) are the most comprehensive time-synchronized technology available. communication infrastructures with increased capabilities
support the high data-streaming rates of synchronized data for local and wide-area applications. the
deployment of synchrophasor systems has led to a paradigm shift, as system behaviors at the high rates
of streaming data in real time provide measurements across a wide area. the cost of
deploying synchrophasor technology continues to drop, and over time all measurement devices will be time synchronized
with high precision and accurate time tags.
applying synchronized measurements
have some unique deployment challenges
as they require the engagement of multiple users with diverse requirements and
varying needs. a well-developed, systemwide PmU deployment is necessary to
take full advantage of this technology. after a PmU system is deployed, the incremental costs of
adding applications are minimal in comparison to the added value received.
major progress has been made in the adoption of synchrophasor technology in recent years. the
U.s. department of energy's smart grid investment grants (sgig) has helped significant infrastructure
deployment with many asset owners and reliability coordinators (rcs). these grants have also helped
uncover challenges with production-grade deployment, an essential ingredient in support of the evolution of conventional electrical grids toward active, flexible, and self-managing energy networks. the
large-scale deployment of an advanced measurement and monitoring system has led to increased operational knowledge and a foundation for improved reliability. the advances gained from understanding
real-time monitoring will lead to increased efficiency of the modern grid. our industry is now poised to
implement intelligent solutions for a "predict and mitigate" paradigm. a promising area for development
of practical solutions includes real-time synchrophasor solutions integrated with fast controls.

Implementing Synchrophasor
Technology in Grid Operations
in the WECC Region

WECC (PEAK) History
the western electricity coordinating council (wecc), formerly the western systems coordinating council, was organized in 1967 to facilitate electric industry coordination in planning
september/october 2015

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - September/October 2015