Distributed Asynchronous Algorithms & Software Systems For Wide-Area Monitoring of Power Systems

Abstract:

The objective of this project is to develop a distributed algorithmic framework, supported by a highly fault-tolerant software system, for executing critical transmission-level operations of the North American power grid using gigantic volumes of Synchrophasor data. As the number of Phasor Measurement Units (PMU) increases to more than thousands in the next few years, it appears that the current state-of-the-art centralized communication and information processing architecture of Wide-Area Measurement System (WAMS) will no longer be sustainable under such data-explosion, and a distributed cyber-physical architecture will need to be developed. The North American Synchrophasor Initiative (NASPI) is addressing this architectural aspect by developing new communication and computing protocols through NASPI-net and Phasor Gateway. However, little attention has been paid to a critical consequence of this envisioned distributed architecture namely, distributed algorithms, and the necessary middleware. Our primary task, therefore, will be to develop parallel computational methods for solving real-time wide-area monitoring and control problems with analytical investigation of their stability, convergence and robustness properties, followed by their implementation and testing against extraneous malicious attacks using our WAMS-RTDS testbed at NC State. In particular, we will address three critical research problems, namely, distributed wide-area oscillation monitoring, transient stability assessment, and voltage stability monitoring.