Oscillation Detection Algorithm Development Summary Report and Test Plan

Small signal stability problems are one of the major threats to grid stability and reliability in California and the western U.S. power grid. An unstable oscillatory mode can cause large-amplitude oscillations and may result in system breakup and large-scale blackouts. There have been several incidents of system-wide oscillations. Of them, the most notable is the August 10, 1996 western system breakup produced as a result of undamped system-wide oscillations. There is a great need for real-time monitoring of small-signal oscillations in the system. In power systems, a small-signal oscillation is the result of poor electromechanical damping. Considerable understanding and literature have been developed on the small-signal stability problem over the past 50+ years. These studies have been mainly based on a linearized system model and eigenvalue analysis of its characteristic matrix. However, its practical feasibility is greatly limited as power system models have been found inadequate in describing real-time operating conditions. Significant efforts have been devoted to monitoring system oscillatory behaviors from real-time measurements in the past 20 years. The deployment of phasor measurement units (PMU) provides high-precision time-synchronized data needed for estimating oscillation modes. Measurement-based modal analysis, also known as ModeMeter, uses real-time phasor measure-ments to estimate system oscillation modes and their damping. Low damping indicates potential system stability issues. Oscillation alarms can be issued when the power system is lightly damped. A good oscillation alarm tool can provide time for operators to take remedial reaction and reduce the probability of a system breakup as a result of a light damping condition. Real-time oscillation monitoring requires ModeMeter algorithms to have the capability to work with various kinds of measurements: disturbance data (ringdown signals), noise probing data, and ambient data. Several measurement-based modal analysis algorithms have been developed. They include Prony analysis, Regularized Ro-bust Recursive Least Square (R3LS) algorithm, Yule-Walker algorithm, Yule-Walker Spectrum algorithm, and the N4SID algo-rithm. Each has been shown to be effective for certain situations, but not as effective for some other situations. For example, the traditional Prony analysis works well for disturbance data but not for ambient data, while Yule-Walker is designed for ambient data only. Even in an algorithm that works for both disturbance data and ambient data, such as R3LS, latency results from the time window used in the algorithm is an issue in timely estimation of oscillation modes. For ambient data, the time window needs to be longer to accumulate information for a reasonably accurate estimation; while for disturbance data, the time window can be significantly shorter so the latency in estimation can be much less. In addition, adding a known input signal such as noise probing signals can increase the knowledge of system oscillatory properties and thus improve the quality of mode estimation. System situations change over time. Disturbances can occur at any time, and probing signals can be added for a certain time period and then removed. All these observations point to the need to add intelligence to ModeMeter applications. That is, a ModeMeter needs to adaptively select different algorithms and adjust parameters for various situations. This project aims to develop systematic approaches for algorithm selection and parameter adjustment. The very first step is to detect occurrence of oscillations so the algorithm and parameters can be changed accordingly. The proposed oscillation detection approach is based on the signal-noise ratio of measurements