Architecture and laboratory implementation of a testing platform for Wide Area Monitoring Systems

Abstract

This paper presents a platform for testing wide area monitoring system (WAMS) applications in real time with a Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) approach. The power grid dynamics are emulated by performing real-time phasor simulations. Voltage and current phasors can be streamed to external systems based on the standard IEEE C37.118-2011, recreating synthetic synchrophasors. Moreover, phasors can be transformed into time-domain quasi-sinusoidal signals and transferred via a low-latency fiber optic connection to a 200 kW high-bandwidth grid emulator. The grid emulator can amplify the voltage and current signals, allowing Power Hardware-in-the-Loop (P-HIL) testing of physical hardware components. A graphical user interface has been developed to facilitate the interactions with the real time simulation and for better visualizing the power system dynamics. Two WAMS applications for assessing voltage stability margins and for detection of power oscillation are implemented and tested as examples. These examples demonstrate that the framework is a suitable platform to test WAMS applications in power systems