‘In Silico’ Testing of a Decentralized PMUData-Based Power Systems Mode Estimator

This paper presents the software implementation ofa Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) data-based mode estimationapplication in a decentralized mode estimation architecture. Thiswork builds from previous efforts in the development of a modeestimator implemented using a centralized architecture, meaninga set of modes were estimated for the whole system in a singleprocessing location. One drawback of mode estimators that usecentralized mode architecture is that the observability and thereforeestimation of important low-damped local electromechanicalmodes can be affected by the higher observability of otherdominant modes of the systems (e.g inter-area modes). This workproposes, implements and tests a decentralized architecture inorder to increase the observation capability to provide betterestimates of local low damped oscillations. In this architecture,the data from a single PMU or a group of local PMUs couldbe processed by a processor to estimate the modal parametersobserved at a specific part of the grid or observed by specificgroup of PMUs. The decentralized architecture and results oftests are presented in this paper together with comparison witha centralized architecture.QC 20160415