P OLITECNICO DI M ILANO

D EPARTMENT OF E NERGY
D OCTORAL P ROGRAMME IN ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

R EAL - TIME PMU- BASED POWER SYSTEM INERTIA

MONITORING CONSIDERING DYNAMIC EQUIVALENTS

Doctoral Dissertation of:

Guido Rossetto Moraes

Supervisor:
Prof. Alberto Berizzi

Tutor:
Prof. Cristian Bovo

The Chair of the Doctoral Program:

Prof. Gabriele D’Antona

2019 - XXXII Cycle

"We have this history of impossible solutions to insoluble problems"
Will Eisner

i
 Acknowledgements

F
irst of all I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof. Alberto Berizzi. My sincere gratitude for
giving me the opportunity and for supporting me during the development of this thesis. Thanks
for all the guidance and teachings. Very important was also the contribution of Prof. D’Antona,
not only for the support given as coordinator of the PhD program, but also for the technical discussions
that helped me on several parts of my research.
I would like to thank also the professors that accepted to review this thesis and accepted to take part
on the evaluation board. Many thanks also to the professors of the department of Energy that participated
in one way or another in the evaluation procedures of my doctorate.
In these three years, I counted with the collaboration of many colleagues which I need to thank. Prof.
Grillo, Davide, Fabio and Manuel, it was a pleasure to work with you. I need to thank also the engineers
from Terna SpA, for all the support given and the valuable discussions during the project.
Special thanks to my friend Roberto Salgado, my former supervisor in Brazil, that has deeply inspired
me to continue my studies and has recommended me to PoliMi. Sincere thanks to Prof. Simões, who
also expressed his support to my studies abroad.
My warm thanks to all the friends I have made at PoliMi. First to Claudio, Ilena, Lam and Mina for
opening the doors of the office and integrating me to the group, and for the years of friendship across
borders and countries, thank you so much. Special thanks also for Luca, Khaled and Alberto Carboni,
friends from the same PhD cycle with whom I could face many of the challenges together. My sincere
thanks to Alessandro, Valentin and Andrea, always available for work but also for spending free time
together. I would like to thank Gabriel, brazilian friend who I had the pleasure to meet during his visiting
period at PoliMi. I would like to thank also Matteo, Emanuele and Alberto Bolzoni, and all the other
friends with whom I’ve shared these days at the university, thanks for everything. My heartfelt thanks to
Marina, Silvia and Alfredo, not only for the friendship, but for being there when I needed. I will never
forget, thank you so much.
Thanks to Caio, Murillo and Carla, friends from Brazil whom I had the pleasure to have as flatmates
for a while. Also to my friends at my country of origin, which supported my decision to study abroad
and came to meet me every time I was back in town, thank you. Many thanks to my friends that shared
the same decision and came to do their PhD in Europe. We have shared the same dreams, we have faced

iii
the same challenges. Staying in contact has made everything easier. Warm thanks to Toma and Anna,
for all the visits, all the hours of conversation and all the kind support.
All my gratitude to my family. My parents, Raffaella and Sergio, for supporting me in every possible
way. Stela, for supporting my decision and sharing all these days which I spent abroad, far in distance
but close in heart. My grandparents, not only for all the love, but for giving me these roots that made me
half brazilian and half italian.
Thank you all, for making me feel at home both in Italy and in Brazil.

iv
 Abstract

N
owadays, the energy portfolio is changing to include more Renewable Energy Sources (RES)
in a search for mitigating the impact on the environment. However, the increasing penetra-
tion of RES in power systems has been bringing many challenges for Transmission System
Operators (TSOs). RES-based generators are mainly connected to the grid by means of converters, that
decouple the dynamics of prime movers from the bulk power system. Hence, these units do not con-
tribute directly to the equivalent inertia of the system, and among the main consequences, larger and
longer frequency excursions follows power imbalances on the grid. For that reason, estimating inertia in
real-time is becoming indispensable for the overall security assessment of the system.
This thesis aims at investigating inertia estimation with the use of data coming from Phasor Mea-
surement Units (PMUs), devices capable of acquiring measurements from the grid and providing pha-
sors synchronized by Global Positioning System (GPS) in real-time at high sampling rates. The topic
has been explored in the literature in the last few years, with many methods and solutions to estimate
inertia from the terminals of single generators. However, monitoring individually each generating unit is
a strong assumption taking into consideration the size of power systems and current high cost of PMUs.
Hence, estimating equivalent inertias based on the data provided by few PMUs spread on the system
becomes an interesting practical research topic.
The methodology used in this thesis consists in approaching some of the many challenges that a TSO
may face on estimating inertia, divided according to different topics. Starting from the consideration that
generators are monitored individually, to the case where areas are monitored at boundary buses, different
methods were studied and novel methods and strategies are proposed to estimate inertia in some typical
situations. Different types of perturbations were considered, including loss of generation, load steps,
Renewable Energy Sources (RES) integration, and also inertia estimation under normal load variations.
To test the methods, experiments with 5 different test-systems were performed, with different levels
of complexity. The experiments were divided in 13 different studies, where simulations were handled
using MATLAB and PowerFactory to acquire the equivalent data that PMUs could provide, and the
methods were applied subsequently.
Keywords: Inertia estimation, Phasor Measurement Units, dynamic equivalents.

v
 Estratto

A
l giorno d’oggi, il mix energetico sta cambiando per includere più fonti di energia rinnovabile
(FER) al fine di mitigare l’impatto sull’ambiente. Tuttavia, la crescente penetrazione delle
FER nei sistemi di generazione ha comportato molte sfide per i gestori dei sistemi di trasmis-
sione (TSO). I generatori basati su FER sono principalmente collegati alla rete mediante convertitori,
che disaccoppiano la dinamica del motore primo dalla rete. Pertanto, queste unità non contribuiscono di-
rettamente all’inerzia equivalente del sistema e, tra le principali conseguenze, le escursioni di frequenza
a seguito di squilibri di potenza sulla rete diventano più intense, e pericolose. Per tale motivo, la stima
dell’inerzia in tempo reale sta diventando indispensabile per la valutazione complessiva della sicurezza
del sistema.
Lo scopo di questa tesi è quello di studiare la possibilità di stimare l’inerzia con l’uso di dati prove-
nienti dalle Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs), dispositivi in grado di acquisire misurazioni dalla rete
e fornire fasori sincronizzati dal Global Positioning System (GPS) in tempo reale con alte frequenze di
campionamento, ogni 20 ms. Il tema è stato studiato nella letteratura degli ultimi anni, e presenta molti
metodi e soluzioni per stimare l’inerzia dei singoli generatori. Tuttavia, il monitoraggio individuale di
ciascuna unità di generazione è un’ipotesi forte quando si tiene conto delle dimensioni dei sistemi di
trasmissione reali e degli attuali costi delle PMU. Pertanto, stimare l’inerzia equivalente sulla base dei
dati forniti da alcune PMU diffuse sul sistema diventa un tema di ricerca rilevante.
La metodologia utilizzata in questa tesi consiste nell’approcciare alcune delle molte sfide che un
TSO si trova ad affrontare per stimare l’inerzia, suddivise in argomenti differenti. A partire dall’ipotesi
che i generatori siano monitorati individualmente, fino al caso in cui le aree sono monitorate sulle sbarre
di confine, sono stati studiati diversi metodi e sono stati proposti nuovi approcci e strategie per stimare
l’inerzia delle aree in alcune condizioni tipiche. Sono stati considerati diversi tipi di perturbazione, tra cui
perdita di generazione, gradino di carico, integrazione di FER e anche stima dell’inerzia in condizione
di normali variazioni di carico.
Per validare i metodi, sono stati condotti esperimenti con 5 diversi casi studio, con diversi livelli
di complessità. Gli esperimenti sono stati suddivisi in 13 diversi studi, in cui le simulazioni sono state
condotte utilizzando MATLAB e PowerFactory per acquisire i dati equivalenti a quelli forniti dalle PMU

vii
e i metodi sono stati applicati in sequenza.
Parole chiave: stima dell’Inerzia, Phasor Measurement Units, equivalenti dinamici.

viii
 Contents

1 Introduction 1
1.1 Motivation of the work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2 Objectives of the work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.3 Contributions of the work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.4 Structure of the Thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2 Power system stability 9

2.1 Stability in Power Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2 Synchronous machine representation in stability studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.1 Classical model for synchronous machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2.2 The synchronous inertia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2.3 Multi-machine systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.3 Decoupled machine representation in stability studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3.1 Wind power units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3.2 Photovoltaic units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.3.3 Multi-machine systems considering decoupled units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.4 Loads in stability studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.5 Frequency control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.6 Conclusion of the chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

3 PMUs in Power Systems 33

3.1 Phasors and Synchrophasors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.2 Phasor Measurement Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.3 WAMS and SCADA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.4 Applications of PMUs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.4.1 Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.4.2 State estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.4.3 System protection and control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

ix
Contents

3.5 A focus on the research of PMUs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

3.6 PMUs around the world . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.7 Conclusion of the chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

4 Determination of Power Systems Inertia 49

4.1 General Bibliographical Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.2 Estimation methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.2.1 Inertia estimation through direct Least-squares method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.2.2 Model estimation methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.2.3 Extended Kalman Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.2.4 Inertia estimation with model reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.2.5 Equivalent moving power estimation method (auxiliary) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.2.6 Dynamic matrix method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4.3 Summary of the methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.4 Conclusion of the Chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

5 Numerical results 81
5.1 Preliminary studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
5.1.1 Study 1 - Least-squares direct method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
5.1.2 Study 2 - IME method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
5.1.3 Study 3 - Model Estimation Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5.2 Area equivalent studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
5.2.1 Study 4 - MEM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.2.2 Study 5 - Extended Kalman Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.2.3 Study 6 - Inertia estimation with system reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5.3 RES integration studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5.3.1 Study 7 - Connection of a RES-based generator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
5.3.2 Study 8 - Substitution of a small synchronous generator by a RES-based generator 111
5.3.3 Study 9 - Substitution of a big synchronous generator by a RES-based generator 115
5.4 Additional studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
5.4.1 Study 10 - Tests considering a Probe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
5.4.2 Study 11 - Inertia estimation considering moving power estimation . . . . . . . 123
5.5 Normal load variation studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
5.5.1 Study 12 - MEM with moving power estimation method . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
5.5.2 Study 13 - Dynamic matrix method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
5.6 Conclusion of the chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

6 Conclusions 141
6.1 General conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
6.1.1 Considering generating units monitored individually . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
6.1.2 Considering PMUs monitoring an area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
6.1.3 Application studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
6.2 Future studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Appendices 147

x
A Power and energy generated in Europe 149

B Details of the ”Variance method” 153

C Additional details of the Dynamic matrix method 155

C.1 System reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
C.2 From the infinite bus reference frame to the COI reference frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
C.3 Expressing the motion of the n-th generator in function of the others . . . . . . . . . . . 158
C.4 Derivatives of the linearized system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
C.5 Application example - Calculation of the Jacobian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
C.5.1 Main parameters of the system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
C.5.2 Calculation of the partial Jacobian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

D Test Systems 163

D.1 Test-system A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
D.2 Test-system B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
D.3 Test-system C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
D.4 Test-system D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
D.5 Test-system E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
 List of Figures

1.1 Renewables capacity growth worldwide, [2] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

1.2 Capacity transition, [2] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Power generated at midday, Denmark, 23/08/2019, [7] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 Power generated in UK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.5 Energy generated at midday, Italy, 23/08/2019, [9] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.6 The Italian case, [1] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.7 Contributions of the thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2.1 Structure of a modern power system, adapted from [36] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

2.2 Working principle of thermal and hydro generation, [37] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.3 Working principle of wind-power generation, [38] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.4 Stability analysis classifications, [37] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.5 Schematic diagram of a three-phase synchronous machine, [37] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.6 Classical model of the generator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.7 The R-I and d-q coordinate systems, [42] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.8 Dynamic response of a synchronous generator subject to a step increase on the load . . . 17
2.9 Speed behaviour of the generators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.10 COI behaviour with three different values of equivalent inertia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.11 Speed behaviour - Illustrative cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.12 Typical wind turbine configurations, [49] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.13 Wind turbine operation zones, [50] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.14 Equivalent circuit of SCIG, [51] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.15 Typical PV configurations, [52] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.16 Typical crystalline PV cell, [52] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.17 Equivalent circuit of a PV cell, [53] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.18 Typical waveforms output of an inverter, [52] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.19 Power system with RES units connected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

xiii
List of Figures

2.20 Virtual inertia control, [13] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

2.21 Power system with synthetic inertia provision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.22 Schematic representation of kinetic energy exchange, [13] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.23 Schematic representation of kinetic energy exchange, [13] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.24 Load inertia with respect to system inertia, [55] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.25 Responses of a system with frequency control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.26 Frequency control system, [42] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.27 Governor set-point example, [36] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.28 Speed governor block diagram, [36] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

3.1 A sinusoid and its representation as a phasor, [15] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

3.2 Composing phasors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.3 PMU measurement chain, [60] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.4 PMU block diagram, [60] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.5 SCADA general scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.6 Data comparison PMU vs SCADA, [63] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.7 PMU and SCADA integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.8 RTDMS software - phase angle difference monitoring, [65] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.9 Evaluation of oscillation modes, [64] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.10 Real oscillation event recorded, [66] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.11 Active power recorded, [67] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.12 Frequency recorded, [67] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.13 State Estimation (SE) - SCADA Vs. PMU, [60] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.14 Number of publications about PMUs in IEEE journals, [69] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.15 PMUs in USA, [63] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.16 MedFasee project, Brazil, [124] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.17 PMUs in Europe, 2010, [129] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

4.1 Methodology infographic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

4.2 Radial path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.3 Sliding time window scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.4 Equivalent system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.5 Rotor swings direct problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.6 Parameter estimation inverse problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.7 EKF scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.8 Ward Equivalent Method, [67] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.9 Area monitored by a PMU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.10 Dynamic equivalent of the monitored area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.11 Projected PM L (t) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.12 Ideal steady-state characteristics of a governor with speed droop, [42] . . . . . . . . . . 72

5.1 Study 1 - Simulated system and recorded variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

5.2 Study 1 - Simulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
5.3 Study 2 - Simulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

xiv
 List of Figures

5.4 Study 3 - Test 1 - Dynamic equivalents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

5.5 Study 3 - Test 2 - powers simulated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
5.6 Study 3 - Test 2 - speeds simulated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
5.7 Study 4 - Test-system C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.8 Study 4 - Snipping of Test-system C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
5.9 Study 4 - Dynamic equivalent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
5.10 Study 4 - Test 1 - Frequencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.11 Study 4 - Test 1 - Frequencies estimated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.12 Study 4 - Test 1 - Frequencies of Area 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
5.13 Study 4 - Test 1 - Moving power and active power of Area 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
5.14 Study 4 - Test 2 - Inertias estimated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
5.15 Study 5 - Test 1 - Estimation results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
5.16 Study 5 - Test 2 - Estimation results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5.17 Study 5 - Test 2 - Inertia estimated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5.18 Study 6 - Test-system and dynamic equivalent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
5.19 Study 6 - Test 1 - Mean Frequency of each Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
5.20 Study 6 - Test 1 - Moving and generated powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
5.21 Study 6 - Test 1 - Total load of Area A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.22 Study 6 - Test 1 - Inertia estimated of Area A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.23 Study 7 - Test-system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
5.24 Study 7 - Frequencies of the generators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
5.25 Study 7 - Frequencies of the equivalent machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
5.26 Study 7 - Frequencies of the equivalent machines - Zoom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5.27 Study 7 - Equivalent inertias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
5.28 Study 7 - Frequency and Power variations at Area 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
5.29 Study 8 - Test-system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
5.30 Study 8 - Test 1 - Frequencies of the equivalent machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
5.31 Study 8 - Test 1 - ROCOF and power imbalances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
5.32 Study 8 - Test 1 - Results of Area 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
5.33 Study 8 - Test 2 - Variations at Area 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
5.34 Study 8 - Test 2 - Equivalent inertias estimated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
5.35 Study 9 - Test-system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
5.36 Study 9 - Simulation results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
5.37 Study 9 - Equivalent inertia of A2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
5.38 Study 9 - Results of Area 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
5.39 Study 9 - Results of Area 2 considering more PMUs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
5.40 Study 10: Test-system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
5.41 Study 10 - Test 1 - Probe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
5.42 Study 10 - Test 1 - Frequencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
5.43 Study 10 - Test 1 - Inertias estimated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
5.44 Study 10 - Test 2 - Probe of 10MW peak-to-peak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
5.45 Study 10 - Test 2 - Probe of 4MW peak-to-peak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
5.46 Study 10 - Test 2 - Probe of 2MW peak-to-peak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

xv
List of Figures

5.47 Study 10 - Accuracy of the tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

5.48 Study 11 - Test 1 - Voltage magnitudes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
5.49 Study 11 - Test 1 - Case 2 - Voltage profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
5.50 Study 11 - Test 1 - Case 2 - Load behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
5.51 Study 11 - Test 2 - Voltage profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
5.52 Study 11 - Test 2 - Load behaviour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
5.53 Study 11 - Test 2 - PM L of Area 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
5.54 Study 11 - Test 2 - PM ov of Area 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
5.55 Study 11 - Test 2 - Inertia estimations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
5.56 Study 12 - Considered PMUs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
5.57 Study 12 - Load profile imposed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
5.58 Study 12 - Frequencies estimated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
5.59 Study 12 - Approach I - Load estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
5.60 Study 12 - Approach II - Load estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
5.61 Study 12 - Moving powers estimated of Area 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
5.62 Study 12 - Inertias estimated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
5.63 Study 13 - Test 1 - Load behaviour simulated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
5.64 Study 13 - Test 1 - Simulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
5.65 Study 13 - Test 1 - Estimated M1 and M2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
5.66 Study 13 - Test 1 - Estimated M3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

A.1 Power generated, Denmark, 23/08/2019, [7] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

A.2 Energy generated and consumed, Italy, 23/08/2019, [9] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

C.1 System reducing - Step 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

C.2 System reducing - Step 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

D.1 Test-system A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

D.2 Test-system B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
D.3 Test-system C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
D.4 Test-system D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
D.5 Test-system E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

xvi
 List of Tables

2.1 Typical values of H’, [42] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

3.1 Comparisons between PMU and SCADA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

5.1 Study 1 - Machine parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

5.2 Study 1 - Test 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
5.3 Study 1 - Test 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
5.4 Study 2 - Test 2 - Machine parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
5.5 Study 2 - Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5.6 Study 3 - Test 1 - Machine parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
5.7 Study 3 - Test 1 - Transient reactances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
5.8 Study 3 - Test 1 - Inertia and damping (X
R = 10) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
5.9 Study 3 - Test 2 - Inertia and damping estimated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
5.10 Study 4 - Test 1 - Inertia estimations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
5.11 Study 4 - Test 2 - Inertia estimations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
5.12 Study 5 - Test 1 - machine parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
5.13 Study 6 - Equivalent Inertias of the Test-system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
5.14 Study 6 - Test 1 - Equivalent inertia estimated [s] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
5.15 Study 6 - Test 2 - Equivalent inertias estimated [s] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5.16 Study 13 - Test 1 - Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
5.17 Study 13 - Test 2 - Case 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
5.18 Study 13 - Test 2 - Case 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
5.19 Study 13 - Test 2 - Case 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
5.20 Study 13 - Test 3 - Case 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
5.21 Study 13 - Test 3 - Case 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
5.22 Study 13 - Test 3 - Case 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

D.1 Test-system C - Loads, [42] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

xvii
List of Tables

D.2 Test-system C - Machine parameters, [42] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

D.3 Test-system D - Machine parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
D.4 Test-system E - Line parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

xviii
 List of Abbreviations

RES: Renewable Energy Source

PV: Photovoltaic
WP: Wind Power
TSO: Transmission System Operator
DSO: Distribution System Operator
SCADA: Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition
WAMS: Widea Area Monitoring Systems
PMU: Phasor Measurement Unit
SG: Synchoronous Generator
LS: Least-Squares
KF: Kalman Filter
EKF: Extended Kalman Filter
UFLS: Under Frequency Load Shedding
RoCoF: Rate of Change of Frequency
COI: Center of Inertia
AC: Alternate Current
DC: Direct Current
SCIG: Squirrel Cage Induction Generator
DFIG: Doubly-Fed Induction Generator
DDSG: Direct Drive Synchronous Generator
UKF: Unscented Kalman Filter
IME: Inter-Area Model Estimation
MEM: Model Estimation Methods
AGC: Automatic Generation Control
PFC: Primary Frequency Control
SFC: Secondary Frequency Control
GPS: Global Positioning System
PDC: Phasor Data Concentrator
PSS: Power System Stabilizer
AVR: Automatic Voltage Regulators
HVDC: High-Voltage DC

xix
 CHAPTER 1
Introduction

M
itigating climate change is one of the main challenges of modern society. In the electrical
sector, three issues contribute to reduce carbon emissions: the use of energy provided by
Renewable Energy Sources (RES), the search of energy efficiency and the electrification
of heat and transport applications, which may provide 90% of the necessary reductions by the year
2050, [1]. Consequently, the energy generation portfolio has been changing: the penetration of RES is
increasing in detriment of fossil fuel-based units year by year.
The transition for a greener energy mix requires the deployment of new units, supported by global
policies and efforts. From 2009, the total amount of renewables increased from 1.136GW to 2.350GW
worldwide, more than doubling the capacity in almost one decade, [2]. In 2016, nearly 62% of new
units connected to the networks were renewables, accounting an estimated of 30% power generating
capacity in the world [3]. During 2018, the growth in renewable generation capacity was 171GW, which
represents 7.9% of increase with respect to the previous year.
Among renewable generation, Hydroelectrics still account for the largest share, about 50% of the
total global capacity. Wind and Photovoltaic (PV) power units account together for 44%, while other
types of units account only for 6%, [2]. However, this situation has been changing, since Wind Power
(WP) and PV units have been growing worldwide much more than the others (accounting for 84% of all
new capacity installed in the year of 2018), as Figure 1.1 shows. The reason behind the bigger increase of
WP and PV units is that the environmental impact of these plants is smaller in comparison to the others,
specially Hydroelectrics. The latter requires flooding large areas, affects the fauna and flora of the place
and sometimes lead to resettling the local population.
In a long term view, renewable capacity is expanding in increasing amounts, from 20GW per year

1
Chapter 1. Introduction

Figure 1.1: Renewables capacity growth worldwide, [2]

two decades ago to 160GW per year in the last years. At the same time, non-renewable capacity is still
expanding, but with an oscillating behaviour that averages 115GW per year, being surpassed by the rate
of renewable expansion in the last four years, as depicted in Figure 1.2. The expectation of RES growth
is to meet 30% of global power demand by 2023, excluding hydro share, for the countries that committed
to phase out traditional fossil fuel generation [4] and [5].

Figure 1.2: Capacity transition, [2]

With the growth in the installed capacity, many countries are already operating often with high level
of RES-based energy generation. Denmark, perhaps the most prominent country on operating with high
percentage of renewables, reportedly produced 43.6% of their whole electricity consumption in 2017
with the use of wind turbines [6]. At the day this sentence is being written (23/08/2019), WP generation
produced almost 85% of the total load of the country for a short period of time early in the morning. At
midday, WP generation accounted for 2071MW, and with a high contribution of PV (491MW), reached

2
60% of the of total load consumption of 4265MW at that moment. The remaining power was provided
by Combined Heat and Power units and by importing from other countries. Partial details can be seen in
Figure 1.3, while the full data can be seen in Figure A.1 of Appendix A.

Figure 1.3: Power generated at midday, Denmark, 23/08/2019, [7]

In other countries, the percentage of WP in the generation portfolio is not yet so high but the amount
of energy generated is already very significant. During the same week (18/08/2019-23/08/2019), WP
generation often accounted for more than 30% of the power generated in Great Britain, as reported in [8]
and depicted in Figure 1.4.
In Italy, the PV generation instead, is very representative. Also today (23/08/2019) at midday, PV
generated 7.53GWh, about 18% of the total energy consumed (41.69GWh) at that moment, as Figure 1.5
presents. Full details can be seen in Figure A.2 at Appendix A. Still Thermal was the main source used,
but the penetration of renewables is already remarkable also in this country.
The increasing penetration of RES in the energy portfolio has brought many particularities. First,
due to their intrinsic characteristics, WP and PV units cannot be installed in every part of the grid, since
they depend on the availability of the natural resource. Once installed, the conditions of the transmission
system to supply far regions may not be helpful. The grid has been planned according to recurrent
directions of power flows, from the traditional generating units installed to the main demanding centers.
Once the generating units change, also changes direction of the power flows, as depicted in Figure 1.6.
This may cause congestions (what may bring the necessity of curtailment) and voltage control issues.
Moreover, due to uncertainty, variability and unpredictability characteristics of most RES genera-
tion, a lot of flexibility is needed in the operation of a system that is traditionally not so flexible. As an
example, WP and PV based units are non-dispatchable, what brings the risk of overgeneration in mo-
ments of minimum load or undergeneration in moments of high load. In conventional systems, flexibility
is mainly provided by adjusting the output of generators to follow demand, which is very restrictive to

3
Chapter 1. Introduction

35
Load
WP
30

25

Power (GW) 20

15

10

0
Aug 18 Aug 19 Aug 20 Aug 21 Aug 22 Aug 23 Aug 24
Time 2019

Figure 1.4: Power generated in UK

units that are able to provide that service. To improve the flexibility of the system, main solutions involve
demand-side response, use of energy storage and retrofitting traditional units.
Another challenge of operating a modern power system that stands out is related to the stability of
the system in high presence of RES. In this conditions, there is a change in local and interarea elec-
tromechanical modes, which may cause unexpected oscillations. In addition, the system may face higher
frequency excursions then a conventional system, which requires new tuning of protection devices and
defense plans, situation that may imply further catastrophic conditions if unforeseen.

1.1 Motivation of the work

The frequency behavior of the system during the transient period shortly after the occurrence of a power
imbalance in the grid is governed by its equivalent inertia, which decreases when WP and PV units are
connected to the grid. This is due to the fact that RES do not provide rotational inertia, once they are
electrically decoupled from the grid by converters, such that the power output of these generators do
not counteract frequency deviations of the grid. Systems with low inertia suffer from larger and faster
frequency deviations from nominal values, which can lead to instability and loss of synchronism [10].
An illustrative example of the challenges of operating a system with high penetration of RES is the
blackout that happened with the southern system of Australia, in 2016. Extreme weather conditions
resulted in five electrical faults and the protection disconnected the southern part of the system from the
main grid. However, a viable island operation could not be established because the frequency decayed
very fast (with a rare of approximately 6Hz/s, double the level the load shedding counteract procedures
could expect to operate in time to maintain the frequency of the isolated system). When the frequency
reached 47 Hz, the remaining generators were tripped. The reason for this high Rate of Change of
Frequency (RoCoF) was the low level of inertia which this part of the system was operating with, as it
was identified and reported in [5].
Therefore, an arising stability requirement of modern power systems is to operate the system in a
state that fulfills a minimum threshold level of inertia [11], [12]. A solution under study to guarantee that
requirement and compensate low inertia levels is the so-called synthetic inertia [13]. This "virtual inertia"

4
 1.1. Motivation of the work

Figure 1.5: Energy generated at midday, Italy, 23/08/2019, [9]

consists in controlling power converters to mimic synchronous generators by delivering an active power
response proportional to frequency variations. However, the question that arises is how a Transmission
System Operator (TSO) or a Distribution System Operator (DSO) may know when the equivalent inertia
of the system is low and needs compensation. Many traditional generators are not directly monitored,
and moreover, most of the RES-based units are connected to medium and low voltage grids, leaving the
TSO without the possibility of acquiring direct information in real-time about them. In these conditions,
computing an equivalent inertia in real time is not an easy task, and the possibilities pass through methods
for monitoring and estimation.
For what concerns grid monitoring, TSO worldwide traditionally adopted the Supervisory Control
and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to collect data from substations and to estimate states of interest
in a power system. With the possibility of acquiring voltage magnitudes and power flows at the installed
points with a resolution of one sample at every 2-4 seconds, the SCADA system has been widely used for
steady-state analysis, such as supervising grid topology, active and reactive power control, load schedul-
ing and historical data processing. Notwithstanding, due to the the limited resolution and to the fact that
phase angles are not monitored, SCADA has not been often used for dynamic analysis.
As an alternative, the deployment of the Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) has brought the possibility
of acquiring measurements of current and voltage (magnitude and phase angles) in real-time in a precise
and synchronized way with a resolution of 10-60 samples per second [14]. In other words, PMUs capture
samples from measured waveforms and reconstruct phasors around the fundamental frequency of the
waveform. Synchronizing all the measurements, the phasor concept can be extended from its static

5
Chapter 1. Introduction

Figure 1.6: The Italian case, [1]

characteristics to dynamic characteristics, the so-called synchrophasors.

Due to the ease of working with phasors, and due to the high sampling rate, PMUs have been widely
used for many applications [15], such as monitoring and detecting events, supervising relays and estimat-
ing parameters of interest. Likewise, many studies concerning on-line inertia estimation were developed
in the past few years, normally divided in small-perturbation [16]–[18], large-perturbation [19]–[22] and
steady-state [23], [24] approaches. Nonetheless, this field has still a lot of room for work, as [25] reports.
The area has a lot of space for debate on modelling and analysis of low-inertia systems, which this work
intends to contribute to.

1.2 Objectives of the work

The general aim of this work is to evaluate and develop methods for inertia estimation in real-time or near
real-time, in practical conditions, based on synchrophasor measurements coming from PMUs installed
on a transmission grid. The motivation comes from the necessity of TSOs to monitor equivalent inertia
in real-time, for guaranteeing stability.
In the beginning of this work (2016), no method was identified as a definitive and general solution for
online inertia estimation. Some of the methods require monitoring the terminals of each generating units
[19], [22], some require monitoring coherent groups [16], some require monitoring the moving power
[26]. At the moment of writing this thesis, the assumptions considered by the most recent studies are
still the same [27]–[29].
However, commercial PMUs are still very expensive (reported as costing $40000 to $180000 in
2014, [30]), which limits its installation to strategic points on the grid defined following many different
criteria other from just inertia estimation. In this context, how to make use of available spread PMUs
to evaluate equivalent inertia is a topic not fully explored in the literature yet, with reported challenges
and difficulties [31], but of high interest for TSOs worldwide. The topic involves many aspects: the
determination of equivalent models; the effect of considering different measurement points, and how to
relate them; the impact of loads on the estimations; the consideration of the location of the perturbation.
Besides some of these aspects have individual solutions proposed in the literature, dealing with all of
them with the purpose of estimating inertia is a field not yet explored.

6
 1.3. Contributions of the work

Instead of focusing on developing and testing only one estimation method, applicable to a restricted
set of cases, this work focuses on exploring the variety of practical situations and configurations that a
transmission grid may present, and the possible mathematical models to approach it. As it explored many
different solutions, no method was optimized to the definitive use. Consequently, the studies performed
are limited to simulated data, under practical conditions though. Also, there were no specific studies on
detecting and determining the time of a perturbation, neither bad data detection, as this has been explored
in different works in the literature. This thesis contributes to the topic by proposing solutions to the cases
other works did not explore directly.
Hence, the questions that arose and guided the specific objectives of this work were:

• Considering that PMUs are not necessarily installed at the terminals of every generator, is it still
possible to gather any information regarding inertia?

• Is it possible to make use of PMUs spread on the grid to provide equivalent estimations of inertia
in real-time?

• Is it possible to estimate an equivalent inertia based on a area delimited only by the measurement
units available, regardless the behaviour of the rotating machines inside?

• What is the influence of loads on the estimations?

• What are the challenges and limitations of estimating equivalent inertia after a perturbation?

• Is it possible to monitor the inertia decrease following a substitution of synchronous generation by

RES-based generation?

• Is it possible to monitor the inertia of the system under ambient conditions?

All of these questions were investigated having in mind to maintain the research practical and ap-
plicable with the conditions available nowadays, making reasonable assumptions with the amount of
information a TSO should have.

1.3 Contributions of the work

This thesis approaches inertia estimation with Widea Area Monitoring Systems (WAMS) from two differ-
ent perspectives: monitoring individually generating units considering PMUs installed at terminal buses
or monitoring areas considering PMUs spread on the grid. Regarding the latter, this thesis presents inno-
vative methods that are not based on delimiting the area following coherency criteria, as traditionally is
done in the literature; in the proposed approach they are delimited by the assumption of PMUs installed
at their boundaries. This practical assumption conduced to the development of different methods and
strategies:
A novel Iterative-IME method was developed [32] to build dynamic equivalents and deal with per-
turbations, adapting the work proposed in [16] originally tailored to work with oscillations.
A strategy was developed to take advantage of spread PMUs in a system [33], defining a study area
and using the measurements available to perform estimations of the dynamics of the Center of Inertia
(COI) of the referred area. The technique makes use of Ward method to reduce the system and of the
method proposed in [34] to build dynamic equivalents.

7
Chapter 1. Introduction

When dealing with an area that experiences an internal perturbation, the main challenge faced in this
research was that the equivalent power of the referred area needs to be monitored or estimated. This
condition increases drastically the requirements for practical use of the methods, such that a method to
estimate the equivalent power was proposed. A paper on that topic is under submission.
Another contribution of this thesis is the study of inertia estimation in ambient conditions. The
methods presented in [32] and [34] were tested with a strategy to estimate the equivalent moving power,
with accurate results for generators individually monitored and with limited but practical results for area
monitoring. Alternatively, considering generating buses monitored by PMUs, the method proposed in
[35] was adapted in a novel approach for estimating inertia. A paper on that topic is under submission.
Figure 1.7 presents the summary of the above cited contributions.

INERTIA ESTIMATION

Legend:
Following: Monitoring: Contribution
Methods studied:
Contribution with limited results
Iterative-IME No contribution
Generating Developed
Perturbations "Variance" method
units
EKF
"Dynamic matrix" method (only for load var.)

Require: Methods studied:

Iterative-IME
Normal load Dynamic
Areas Equivalents "Variance" method
variations
Model reduction method

Require:

Moving power Mech. power

Oscillations Equivalents estimation

Load behavior
estimation

Figure 1.7: Contributions of the thesis

1.4 Structure of the Thesis

The remaining of the thesis is organized in the following way:
Chapter 2 brings a theoretical review on the power system’s theory involved with the angle stability
problem, constant of inertia and dynamic equivalents.
Chapter 3 presents the theory involving synchrophasor measurements and stability analysis.
Chapter 4 introduces the methods studied and proposed in this work, and a summary comparing the
inputs, outputs, advantages and limitations of each one.
Chapter 5 presents the numerical results obtained.
Chapter 6 presents the final conclusions.

8
 CHAPTER 2
Power system stability

T
he function of a power system is to supply electric energy to final customers, from genera-
tion through transmission and distribution. Moreover, the stable operation conditions must be
provided, at minimum cost and minimum environmental impact, fulfilling standards of quality
supply, such as constant frequency, constant voltage and reliable operation.
Due to the wide range of elements connected together to perform their function in the role of supply-
ing electric energy, power systems are large and complex, such as the scheme of a generic power system
depicted in Figure 2.1. As it can be seen, generating units are nowadays spread through different levels
of transmission or distribution systems, operating at different voltage levels and supplying different types
of customers. From the operating point of view, every aspect represented in Figure 2.1 has its influence
and interest on this thesis.
A starting point regards the different types of generating units supplying the grid. The generation
process consists in converting primary sources of energy (such as fossil, nuclear, water, wind and solar)
to mechanical energy, later converted to electrical energy by the use of electrical generators.
Traditionally, the thermoelectric and the hydraulic processes are the most used. Figure 2.2 depicts
a general scheme that represents the process of both thermoelectric, that uses steam (generated by a
boiler heated by the combustion of fossil fuels or nuclear fission), and hydraulic, that uses water flow, to
move the shafts of a turbine generating a mechanical torque (Tm ) and a mechanical power (Pm ). The
mechanical power is converted to electrical power (Pe ) through a synchronous generator. Basically, a
synchronous generator requires the frequency of the stator (depending on the frequency of the grid) to
be synchronized to the rotor mechanical speed to operate. Consequently, in a multi-machine system,
the stator voltages and currents of all machines must have the same frequency also, such that a stable

9
Chapter 2. Power system stability

Figure 2.1: Structure of a modern power system, adapted from [36]

operation depends on that. Normally, these types of units are concentrated in specific points of the grid,
with many generators able to provide energy to the part of the system through the transmission lines, as
represented in Figure 2.1.

Figure 2.2: Working principle of thermal and hydro generation, [37]

Regarding the environmental impact of these traditional fonts, there are many issues. The process of
combustion of fossil fuels is very pollutant, and the process based on nuclear fission has always the risk
of contamination, that can be mitigated but not totally eliminated. The hydroelectric units do not exploit
a resource that is in principle finite, since it exploits the power of moving water to generate electricity.
However, the impact to the environment on the installation of hydroelectric units is a problem, and the
places where they can be installed with limited impact are scarce. With the requirements of providing

10
solutions for energy generation that impacts less the environment, the search for RES brought WP and
PV to highlight.
As an illustrative example, Figure 2.3 presents the working principle of wind-power generation. The
mechanical power provided by the rotation of the shaft is converted either through an asynchronous
generator, or through power electronic devices that decouple the generating process from the grid when
delivering the electrical power. From the point of view of this thesis, the process used in PV units is
similar to the process represented in Figure 2.3, because of the same decoupling provided by DC/AC
converters. Normally, WP and PV can be installed in any part of the grid, but their use for distributed
generation have been increasing recently, as represented in Figure 2.1 at medium and low voltage net-
works.

Figure 2.3: Working principle of wind-power generation, [38]

One of the main differences between synchronous generation and decoupled generation regards their
inertial response to perturbations. In short, every rotating machine has a constant of inertia that "quan-
tifies the kinetic energy of the rotor at synchronous speed in terms of the number of seconds it would
take the generator to provide an equivalent amount of electrical energy when operating at a power output
equal to its MVA rating" [36]. In other words, the dynamic effect of the perturbation on the units cou-
pled to the grid (synchronous machines) is to release an amount of electrical energy that was previously
stored in the form of kinetic energy in the shafts of these units. This amount of energy provided may
mitigate the negative effect of the perturbation without affecting drastically the operating frequency of
the system. However, decoupled units do not provide naturally a contribution to an inertial response,
making the system weaker in terms of frequency changes. For that reason, control strategies are under
development to provide the so-called synthetic inertia, an emulation of the synchronous inertial response
making use of power electronic devices of decoupled generating units [39], [40].
This chapter aims at presenting the main concepts involving the operation of a multi-machine sys-
tem with both synchronous and asynchronous/decoupled machines, such that one can understand the
importance of inertia in modern power systems and the problems of stability under high penetration of
RES-based generation. To delimit the field of study of this thesis, Section 2.1 presents the concepts in-
volving Stability in Power Systems and defines the assumptions involved in these types of studies. After
the field is delimited, Section 2.2 presents the general concepts and models of Synchronous generators

11
Chapter 2. Power system stability

that will be adopted in this thesis. Section 2.3 describes the differences about types of generation based
on machines decoupled from the frequency of the grid. Complementing, Section 2.4 discusses load
modelling for stability studies and Section 2.5 presents a brief introduction to frequency control.

2.1 Stability in Power Systems

As previously presented, traditional power systems were based on operating the system at a synchronous
speed, such that maintaining synchronism after a perturbation has always been one of the most challeng-
ing issues even before the increasing penetration of RES. In modern power systems, this type of problem
is studied under the classification of large perturbation analysis, as represented in Figure 2.4.

Power System Legend:

Stability Field of Study

Rotor Angle Frequency Voltage

Stability Stability Stability

Small-Disturbance Large-Disturbance Small-Disturbance Large-Disturbance

Angle Stability Angle Stability Voltage Stability Voltage Stability

Figure 2.4: Stability analysis classifications, [37]

Formally, stability can be stated as "the ability of an electric power system, for given initial operating
condition, to regain a state of operating equilibrium after being subjected to a physical disturbance" [37].
Hence, as a general concept, it can be extended to describe three different type of problems: rotor angle,
voltage and frequency stability, differing mainly in the power system variable affected by the possible
unstable behaviour. These classifications are important non only to define the field of study of this thesis,
but also because it impacts on modelling assumptions of the studied methods.
The field of study of this work is rotor angle stability, traditionally divided in small perturbation
angle stability (electromechanical oscillations) and large perturbation angle stability. Small-angle in-
stability problems are normally related to insufficient damping. The large perturbation angle instability
instead, is associated with the nonlinear power-angle relationship. The latter is normally a consequence
of both the initial state and of the severity of the perturbation, and mainly occurs due to a lack of syn-
chronizing torque [37]. According to the imbalance, the equilibrium between the mechanical and the
electrical torques of a synchronous machine is affected, resulting in acceleration or deceleration of its
rotor. Hence, according to the angle separation between the connected machines, the system may regain
or lose synchronism. The time frame of interest in these type of studies range from the first seconds after
the perturbation until 10-20s in very large systems.
To study rotor angle stability problems, a dynamic model of the grid is needed, either for simulation
or analysis. Due to the complexity of real power systems, model simplification is not only acceptable
but sometimes necessary, because of computational time and effort. The traditional approach consists in
making simplifying assumptions according to the time constants of the phenomenon considered. Pertur-
bations are usually classified in electromagnetic and electromechanical transients.

12
 2.2. Synchronous machine representation in stability studies

Much slower are the electromagnetic dynamics that take place in the machine windings following a
disturbance, operation of the protection system or the interaction between the electrical machines and
the network.
The fastest events are classified as electromagnetic transients, lasting mostly µs to ms [41]. This
type of phenomena takes place in the machine windings, following disturbances, opening or closure of
circuit breakers, specific actions of power electronic devices or equipment failures. Due to their fast rate
of decay, electromagnetic transients deal with changes in voltages and currents, and they affect mostly
transmission lines, transformers and protection devices. On the other hand, the inertia of the turbines,
motors and generators are sufficient to prevent any significant change in the synchronous speed of the
system [36].
Electromechanical transients, instead, last from ms to s. They are caused by mismatches between
production and consumption following a disturbance, and their time scale is long enough to affect the
rotor of the synchronous machines and some controls. Due to their faster behaviour, network voltages
and currents (that change in the order of µs to ms) may be considered as passing from one steady state
to another[42], which allows modelling their behaviour using algebraic equations, while the dynamic of
synchronous machines are represented with differential equations.

2.2 Synchronous machine representation in stability studies

Synchronous machines consist basically of two elements: the field and the armature circuits. The field
circuit (normally in the rotor) is excited with dc current, and driven by a prime mover, forms a rotating
field that induces an emf in the armature winding (normally in the stator). The reaction of the induced
currents in the stator is to produce a magnetic flux that rotates at the same speed as the rotor. The resulting
flux regarding the excitation and the induced fluxes is stationary concerning the rotor motion, but rotates
at synchronous speed in relation to the stator. In this way, the speed of the machine is proportional to the
operating frequency of the network [36], [43]. Figure 2.5 depicts a three-phase machine with one pair of
field poles, where ωr is the rotor speed.

Figure 2.5: Schematic diagram of a three-phase synchronous machine, [37]

13
Chapter 2. Power system stability

In developing a mathematical model for a synchronous machine, one need to write the differential
equations that represent the magnetic and the electrical circuits. To do so, some assumptions are usually
adopted: sinusoidal distribution of the stator windings along the air-gap (if the mutual effects with the
rotor are considered), the rotor inductances don’t vary significantly with the rotor position, magnetic
hysteresis and saturation effects negligible. These assumptions are supported by field tests and measured
performances.
From the mathematical models to represent synchronous machines available in the literature, the
classical model, that consists in a voltage source behind a reactance, is the simplest and the easiest one
to be used when explaining large perturbations in a multi-machine system. Moreover, it is the model that
most benefit from phasor representation, relating to the intention of using data from PMUs, and a major
trade-off (in this thesis) is whether a more detailed model is identifiable based on measurements and in
practical conditions. The classical model is based on strong assumptions, but its use in stability studies
is wide spread and recognized [42], [44], [45]. This section quickly reviews the main concepts related to
it.

2.2.1 Classical model for synchronous machines

Considering the study of an isolated generator connected to an infinite power bus, the occurrence of a
perturbation induces currents in the rotor circuits of the machine, that following the occurrence of the
event, decay with different time constants. The parameters intrinsic to the machine that have a faster
influence on the decay are the so called sub-transient parameters, the transient parameters are those
related to slower decay, and the synchronous parameters are those related to sustained influence. The
time constants corresponding to the rate of decay, together with the effective reactances seen from the
terminals of the machine are related to the fundamental frequency of the transient, and are the main
important quantities to define synchronous machines in transient analysis.
0
A particular figure of interest is the open-circuit transient time constant (T d0 ). This constant is an
operational parameter determined through an open-circuit test, and characterizes the time required for
the transient alternating component of the open-circuit current to decay until 0.368 time its initial value.
It is a characteristic of the construction of every machine, and it is a function of the inductances of the
field and armature, with typical values reaching 10s for Hydro and Thermal units [42]. Typically, if the
0
period of study is smaller than T d0 , the rotor flux linkages in the field of the machine can be considered
constant. As a consequence, no differential equations are needed to represent the electrical characteristics
of the machine.
Neglecting also the transient saliency of the rotors, the machine can be represented as a voltage
source behind a transient reactance. Figure 2.6 shows the classical configuration for a generator, where
E0 and ET are the transient internal voltage and terminal voltage, I is the current and x0d is the transient
reactance, respectively, and the use of bold letters denotes phasors quantities.
Using phasor notation, E0 = E 0 ∠δ can be calculated according to its pre-disturbance value

E0 = E00 + jxd I0 (2.1)

where the subscript 0 and xd denote pre-disturbance quantities. The phasor notation is possible because
only the fundamental frequency components of stator quantities are considered, once the phasors are
defined in terms of d-q axis components of terminal voltages. The d-q axis are represented in Figure 2.5.

14
 2.2. Synchronous machine representation in stability studies

Figure 2.6: Classical model of the generator

As a consequence of the constant flux linkage hypothesis, the d-q components of the voltage E0 =
Ed + j ∗ Eq can be considered constant throughout all the study period, and therefore |E0 | can be
considered constant. As the rotor speed changes, E 0 will have constant orientation in relation to its
d-q components, as it can be seen in Figure 2.7. Hence, the phase angle δ can be used as an accurate
approximation for the rotor angle of the synchronous machine in study. As δ varies, so does I and ET ,
according to Ohm’s Law.

Figure 2.7: The R-I and d-q coordinate systems, [42]

2.2.2 The synchronous inertia

The expression that describes the motion of the rotor is the so called Swing Equation:

dωm (t)
J = Tm (t) − Te (t) (2.2)
dt

where J is the momentum of inertia, ωm is the mechanical speed of the rotor in [mech. rad/s] in a fixed
reference and Tm and Te are the mechanical and electrical torque (in [Nm]), respectively [42].
The momentum of inertia, J, is a constant defined as
Z
J , r2 dm, kg.m2 (2.3)

where r is the distance to the pivot point and m is the mass of the body.
The mechanical speed of the rotor (ωm ) is given by the derivative of the rotor angular position ϑm ,

15
Chapter 2. Power system stability

expressed with reference to a fixed axis:

dϑm (t)
ωm (t) = (2.4)
dt

However, it is possible (and more convenient) to adopt a rotating reference at synchronous speed for
ϑm , given by
ϑm (t) = ω0m t + δm (t) (2.5)

where ω0m is the mechanical synchronous speed and δm is the rotor angular position in the synchronously
rotating frame, in [mech. rad].
Hence, Equation (2.2) may be rewritten substituting first Equation (2.4), and then Equation (2.5),
giving:
d2 δm (t)
J = Tm (t) − Te (t) (2.6)
dt2
Expressing (2.6) in terms of Power [W], there is

d2 δm (t)
J ωm (t) = Pm (t) − Pe (t) (2.7)
dt2

The momentum of inertia can be substituted by the so-called Inertia Constant (H), that is the ratio
between the stored kinetic energy ESG in [MWs] at synchronous speed and the machine rating power
Sn in [MVA], given by
ESG
H0 , [M W s/M V A] (2.8)
Sn
The stored kinetic energy, in its turn, is given by

2
Jω0m
ESG = (2.9)
2

As a representative example of Equation (2.8), if a Synchoronous Generator (SG) has H 0 = 3s, this
means that the kinetic energy stored at the rotating parts of this machine can feed the rated load for 3s.
Table 2.1 presents typical values.

Table 2.1: Typical values of H’, [42]

Type H’ [MWs/MVA]
Thermal unit
2.5 to 6
2-pole 3600 r/min
Thermal unit
4 to 10
4-pole 1800 r/min
Hydraulic 2 to 4

Besides the unit of the defined constant H 0 is [M W s/M V A], it is often used in the literature only
[s], assuming the rated power of the generator is already taken into account. This will be the definition
used in most of this thesis, represented by H.
It is also common in the literature to define other inertia constants in terms of H, [46], such as

2H
M= , [s2 ] (2.10)
ω0

16
 2.2. Synchronous machine representation in stability studies

and
M 0 = 2H, [s] (2.11)

Assuming ωm (t) ≈ ω0m , Equation (2.7) becomes

2HSn d2 δm (t)
= Pm (t) − Pe (t) (2.12)
ω0m dt2

For power system studies, it is more useful to substitute the mechanical quantities δm and ωm by
their electrical correspondent, according to the number of the pole pairs (p) of the machine,

δ = pδm (2.13)

ω = pωm (2.14)

where δ is the rotor angular position (or simply rotor angle) in electrical [rad] and ω is the rotor speed in
electrical [rad/s].
Expressing (2.12) in terms of δ and ω, and dividing the right hand side of Eq. (2.12) by Sn , the
Swing Equation can be written as

2H d2 δ(t)
= Pm (t) − Pe (t), p.u. (2.15)
ω0 dt2

Referring to Equation (2.15), when the per-unit mechanical power Pm provided by the generators
no longer matches the per-unit electrical power Pe consumed by loads and losses, the per-unit angular
speed of the generators (ω) increases or decreases, depending on the sign of the power mismatch. The
imbalance (Pm (t) − Pe (t)) is also called accelerating power Pacc . As an illustrative example, Figure 2.8
presents the dynamic behaviour of a synchronous generator simulated using the classical model. After a
load step (in t = 5s), the active power (Pe ) produced increases to match the increase in the load, while
the mechanical power (Pm ) is kept constant (see Figure 2.8(a)). Consequently, the accelerating power
right after the perturbation is negative, producing a decrease in the speed as it can be seen in Figure
2.8(b).

0.306 1
Pm
1 1
0.304 Pe1 0.9995

0.302
0.999

0.3
0.9985
Speed (p.u.)
Power (p.u.)

0.298
0.998
0.296
0.9975
0.294

0.997
0.292

0.29 0.9965

0.288 0.996
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Time(s) Time(s)

(a) Power behaviour (b) Speed behaviour

Figure 2.8: Dynamic response of a synchronous generator subject to a step increase on the load

17
Chapter 2. Power system stability

This variation could be limited by the damping torque (i.e., the product between the damping co-
efficient D and the difference between the current and rated per-unit angular speed of the generators
(ω − ω 0 ), exerted by the damping windings of the generators and by the loads whose withdrawn power
changes with the frequency. To consider the damping coefficient, Equation (2.15) can be rewritten as

2H d2 δ(t) dδ(t)
2
+D = Pm (t) − Pe (t), p.u. (2.16)
ω0 dt dt
Or, alternatively,
2H dω(t)
+ Dω(t) = Pm (t) − Pe (t), p.u. (2.17)
ω0 dt
As it can be understood from Equations (2.15) and (2.16), the inertia constant H plays a very impor-
tant role in the inertial response: considering a fixed amount of power imbalance, the higher the inertia,
the lower the frequency variation right after a power disturbance.

2.2.3 Multi-machine systems

In a multi-machine system, where many generators and loads are interconnected by tie-lines, Equation
(2.17) can be extended for everyone of the i machines connected [47]. Neglecting damping for the sake
of simplicity, the general set of i equations is


 H1 dωdt
1 (t)
= (Pm1 (t) − Pe1 (t)) ω20





 H2 dωdt
2 (t)
= (Pm2 (t) − Pe2 (t)) ω20






 ..
.




Hi dωdt
i (t)
= (Pmi (t) − Pei (t)) ω20



An important concept to study the dynamics of a multi-machine system is the COI, a rotational
analogy of the center of mass of an object. The dynamic behaviour of the synchronous machines tends
to follow the speed associated to its COI [10], [13], [48], the so-called mean speed, determined by the
following expression
Pi
j=1 Snj Hj ωj
ωCOI , Pi (2.18)
j=1 Snj Hj

Related to the COI, the equivalent inertia constant HCOI can be calculated with the following defi-
nition
Pi
j=1 Snj Hj
HCOI , Pi (2.19)
j=1 Snj

In addition, the same concepts can be extended to define similarly an equivalent phase angle δCOI
and equivalent frequency fCOI :
Pi
j=1 Snj Hj δj
δCOI , Pi (2.20)
j=1 Snj Hj

18
 2.2. Synchronous machine representation in stability studies

Pi
j=1 Snj Hj fj
fCOI , Pi (2.21)
j=1 Snj Hj

The equivalent motion equation of the system with respect to its COI is given by
Pi
j=1 Snj Hj ωj
Pi d i
j=1 Snj Hj
Pi
2 j=1 Snj
X
Pi =( Pmj (t) − Pej (t)), p.u. (2.22)
ω0 j=1 Snj
dt j=1

or alternatively

2 dωCOI
HCOI = (PmEq (t) − PeEq (t)), p.u. (2.23)
ω0 dt
Pi Pi
where PmEq (t) = j=1 Pmj (t) and PeEq (t) = j=1 Pej (t).
To illustrate the behaviour of a multi-machine dynamics, a system consisting of three synchronous
generators is taken as example. The behaviour of the COI of the system right after a load increase is
represented in Figure 2.9, in comparison to the speed of the three machines of the system. It can be seen
that the mean frequency gives the general trend of the decrease.

1.0005
1

3
1
COI
Speed (p.u.)

0.9995

0.999

0.9985
4.5 5 5.5 6 6.5 7
Time(s)

Figure 2.9: Speed behaviour of the generators

The effect of decreasing the inertia is represented in Figure 2.10 for the same perturbation, where
ωCOII is the long term response of the same ωCOI presented in Figure 2.9, while ωCOIII and ωCOIIII
are the mean speed after the equivalent inertia of the system is reduced to half and to third, respectively.
Two other illustrative examples of multi-machine dynamics are represented in Figure 2.11. First,
Figure 2.11(a) depicts the case when frequency controllers are included in the system, bringing the mean
frequency back to 1 p.u. some seconds after the perturbation. In the legend, ωF C denotes the case with
frequency controllers, while ωWF C denotes the case without. At second, Figure 2.11(b) illustrates the
case when the system is not able to handle the size of the perturbation applied, and the rotor angles
increase indefinitely until the synchronism is lost. No frequency controllers are considered in this case.

19
Chapter 2. Power system stability

COI
I
0.9995
COI
II

0.999 COI
III

Speed (p.u.) 0.9985

0.998

0.9975

0.997

0.9965

0.996

0.9955
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Time(s)

Figure 2.10: COI behaviour with three different values of equivalent inertia

1.12

1.1 1

2
1.08
3
1.06
Speed (p.u.)

1.04

1.02

0.98

0.96
4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Time(s)

(a) Frequency control (b) Loss of synchronism

Figure 2.11: Speed behaviour - Illustrative cases

2.3 Decoupled machine representation in stability studies

Specifically for stability studies, the most important variables regarding generating units connected to
the system through power electronic devices are the outputs of the converter, since the other quantities
are decoupled from the frequency of the grid. To reach this conclusion, this Section will give a brief
explanation of the processes involved.

2.3.1 Wind power units

Wind Power generation units are composed basically by a wind turbine, a generator and a converter or
transformer. Also, battery banks can be included to mitigate the intermittency of the source. The main
topologies can be divided in:

• Fixed-speed topology:
Speed set by the frequency of the grid, the gear and the generator characteristics, no matter the

20
 2.3. Decoupled machine representation in stability studies

wind speed. The mechanical power generated by the rotation of the turbine’s blades is transformed
into electrical power through the use of induction generators, the most common is the Squirrel
Cage Induction Generator (SCIG). The generator is normally connected to the grid through trans-
formers, capacitors banks and soft starters.

• Variable-speed topology:
Designed to obtain maximum efficiency over a continuous range of wind speed, adapting the
rotational speed of the rotor to the speed of the wind. The mechanical torque is approximately
constant while the variations of wind are absorbed by the rotor speed of a synchronous or induction
generator, that must be decoupled from the grid through power converters to allow this type of
operation. The main used generators are the Doubly-Fed Induction Generator (DFIG) and the
Direct Drive Synchronous Generator (DDSG).

Figure 2.12 depicts the most common schemes of connection of wind turbines to the grid. In the
Figure, WRIG denotes Wound Rotor Induction Generator (a type of DFIG), PMSG denotes Permanent
Magnet Synchronous Generator and WRSG denotes Wound Rotor Synchronous Generator.

Figure 2.12: Typical wind turbine configurations, [49]

21
Chapter 2. Power system stability

Regarding the wind turbines, the operation can be divided in four different zones, as depicted in
Figure 2.13. In zones I and IV the turbine does not work, because the wind speed is less than the rated
speed Vin or greater than the maximum speed Vout , respectively. In Zone II the turbine works with
optimized efficiency, obtaining maximum conversion of the wind kinetic energy into electrical energy
according to the generator used. In Zone III the power output remains constant no matter the wind speed,
by controlling the blades of the turbine.

Figure 2.13: Wind turbine operation zones, [50]

According to the wind speed (vW ) and the operational zone, the mechanical power produced by a
wind turbine is given by

1
PW = Cp πρr2 vW
3
(2.24)
2
kg
where ρr = 1.225 m 3 is the air density, r is the rotor radius and Cp is the efficiency coefficient of

the wind turbine [49]. To transform the mechanical power into electrical, a generator is needed, either
synchronous or asynchronous. Between the asynchronous generators, the induction machines are the
most used.
While the principles of synchronous generators have already been presented, the principle of working
of induction machines is based on applying an exciting Alternate Current (AC) to the stator, that creates
a magnetic field rotating at the speed of the grid. If the rotor rotates with a speed different from the
synchronous machine of the grid, a current is then induced in it’s windings, which in turn creates a
magnetic field that opposes the rotating field in the stator. The interaction between these two fields
produces a mechanical torque in the rotor. The speed of the rotor, regarding induction generators, must
be faster than the synchronous speed by a difference factor called slip (sl ):

ωs − ωr
sl = (2.25)
ωs
where ωs is the speed at the stator, therefore synchronous, and ωr is the speed of the rotor. To generate
power, induction generators vary their rotor speed and their slip, without acting on the frequency of the
stator [43]. The variation of the slip in time is given by

dsl 1
= [Tm − Te ] (2.26)
dt 2H

22
 2.3. Decoupled machine representation in stability studies

where, similarly to synchronous machines, H is the constant of inertia, Tm and Te are the mechanical
and electrical torque, respectively.
Regarding the SCIG, the rotor speed variations may reach only 2% of its nominal speed. For this
reason, they are often referred as constant speed machines, and consequently quantities depending on ωr
can also be considered constant. Normally these machines are designed with a suitable number of poles
to provide two different power outputs (both a two different constant speed or slip values).
The equivalent circuit of a SCIG generator can be seen in Figure 2.14, in the d-q reference frame.
The electric power output injected in the grid can be determined according to only stator quantities [49],
as follows,
Ps = vds ids + vqs iqs (2.27)

Figure 2.14: Equivalent circuit of SCIG, [51]

The other two machines, DFIG and DDSG, are instead variable speed systems, allowing a larger
range of wind power to be explored. To allow the rotation of the rotor to vary without implications
on the function of the machine, a power converter is needed to assure frequency decoupling. In the
DFIG, the electrical frequency of the grid matches the electrical frequency of the rotor, that is therefore
decoupled from the mechanical frequency of the rotor (rotation speed). In the DDSG, the decoupling
between the grid and the generator is total, such that the generator side of the converter can be a voltage
source or a diode rectifier to excite the field circuit of the machine [38].
Looking at the grid side, the electric power output of a converter can be expressed by

Pc = udc idc + uqc iqc (2.28)

where, similar to Equation (2.27), the subscripts d and q denote direct and quadrature components of the
voltage u and the current i at the grid side of the converter, denoted by c. The power Pc is consequently
a function of the rotor power in terms of the efficiency of the converter, but is decoupled from the rotor
speed dynamics.

2.3.2 Photovoltaic units

Photovoltaic units normally consist of one or more PV panels, a DC/AC inverter, a distribution panel or a
transformer, and battery banks that can be used for benefit. Figure 2.15 presents some typical connection
schemes.
In short, PV cells are crystalline-based featuring a p-n junction, whose positive and negative sides
present a DC voltage, able to supply electricity. The material of the cell is able to absorb photons of light
and release electrons, by the so-called photoelectric effect. The scheme of a PV cell is depicted in Figure
2.16.

23
Chapter 2. Power system stability

Figure 2.15: Typical PV configurations, [52]

Figure 2.16: Typical crystalline PV cell, [52]

PV cells are direct current sources, such that the reverse flow of current should be prevented by the
usage of blocking diodes. In addition, the full equivalent circuit of a PV cell includes a shunt resistor and
a series resistor to model non-ideal factors [52]. Figure 2.17 depicts the equivalent circuit of a PV cell.

q(V + IRs ) V + IRs

IP V = IP H − ID − IL = IP H − I0 (exp( ) − 1) − (2.29)
AkT RL
where IP H is the PV photon current, ID is the diode current and IL is the inter-electronic leakage
current. Also, I0 is the diode reverse saturation current, q is the charge of the element, k is the Boltzmann
constant, A is the diode constant and T is the temperature in the p-n junction. The characteristics of the
expression of ID are due to the Shockley theory for p-n junctions [52].
The output voltage V of a single cell is less than 1V , such that these cells must be combined in series
and parallel, forming bigger arrays. By using circuits theory, the equivalent DC output of the array can
be determined. PV power plants are large-scale systems that include one or more PV arrays and multiple
inverters to handle the connection with the grid, reaching the order of M W of power generation.
When using PV units for supplying power to AC grids, a DC/AC inverter is needed. The output of a
typical inverter can be seen in Figure 2.18, here based on a frequency of 50Hz.
The output of the inverter is given by the dynamics of a DC Link for AC grid connections, that may

24
 2.3. Decoupled machine representation in stability studies

Figure 2.17: Equivalent circuit of a PV cell, [53]

Figure 2.18: Typical waveforms output of an inverter, [52]

include a high capacitance to filter double-line frequency ripple if the connection is single phase.
The output current of the cell is given by

dVdc Pdc − Pgrid

Cdc = (2.30)
dt Vdc

where Cdc is the filter capacitance, Vdc and Pdc are the voltage and power in the DC part, inputs for the
inverter, and Pgrid is the power at the side of the inverter, delivered to the grid. As it can be seen, the
power output is a function of an operational capacitance and the efficiency of the device on the DC/AC
conversion. When connected to medium voltage grids, transformers are normally required.

2.3.3 Multi-machine systems considering decoupled units

Figure 2.19 depicts a modern power system considering the presence of WP and PV generators.
In this illustrative example, the equivalent inertia of this system is given by the synchronous machines
connected (Equation (2.9)), the only ones contributing to the mean frequency (the frequency at the COI,
as defined in Equation (2.31)). For the moment, synthetic inertia is not considered.
Pi
j=1 Snj Hj fj
fCOI , Pi (2.31)
j=1 Snj Hj

However, the WP and PV are contributing in power generated to feed the loads. In this way, Equation
(2.23) can be restated to include the decoupled machines,

25
Chapter 2. Power system stability

Figure 2.19: Power system with RES units connected

2 dfCOI
HCOI = Ps (t) + Pdec (t) − PL (t) − Pj (t), p.u. (2.32)
f0 dt
where Ps stands for the total power generated by synchronous machines, Pdec stands for the total power
generated by decoupled machines, PL is the total active power consumed by the loads and Pj is the total
active power losses in the transmission lines, [25].
To illustrate the case, suppose a first situation with n synchronous generators with a total HCOI =
12.5s, at f = 50 Hz, supply a total load of 10 p.u., damping and losses neglected. If a step increase of
0.1 p.u. occurs in the load, by Equation (2.23), the RoCoF is

dfCOI (10 − 10.1) ∗ 50 Hz

= = 0.2
dt 2 ∗ 12.5 s
Now suppose a second situation when 20% of the original load (10 p.u) is supplied by an asyn-
chronous generator, and the other 80% is supplied by synchronous generators totalizing HCOI = 10s.
The inertia of the COI has decreased because, due to the connection of the decoupled generation, some
synchronous generators were not needed anymore. In this conditions, and considering the same load
step, Equation (2.32) gives

dfCOI (8 + 2 − 10.1) ∗ 50 Hz
= = 0.25
dt 2 ∗ 10 s

As it can be seen, the RoCoF increased form 0.2 Hz/s to 0.25 Hz/s. The drawbacks of higher RoCoF
are very important. First, the RoCoF creates higher difference between rotor angles. The higher this
difference, the lower the chances of the system to keep synchronism. At second, many protection devices
are set to disconnect generation due to frequency thresholds, which may cause power imbalance and
consequently blackouts.
The fact that the WP and PV units are not able to provide synchronous inertia to the grid is seen as
a drawback by TSOs. However, it is possible to overcome this problem in some cases by controlling
the power electronic devices used in the connection, and exploiting "hidden" energy stored in these units
to provide the so-called synthetic (or virtual) inertia. Considering PV and WP units, the main sources
of energy that can be exploited are the kinetic energy stored in the rotating masses of the blades of the
wind turbine and the energy stored in batteries that might be connected to the power units [39], [54]. The
synthetic inertia can be used in cases in which the equivalent inertia of the system is recognized as low,
with the drawback of slowing down the turbine blades or decreasing the amount of energy stored in the

26
 2.3. Decoupled machine representation in stability studies

batteries.
To provide the synthetic inertia, the converters that decouple the generators from the grid can vary the
energy exchange in terms of a measured frequency variation in the grid, as represented in the simplified
scheme represented in Figure 2.20. In the scheme, the unit equipped provides a kinetic energy of EV =
JV ωe2
2 , where JV is the virtual moment of inertia of the unit. More complex and detailed schemes for
virtual inertia provision are proposed in the literature. The interested reader may refer to [40].

Figure 2.20: Virtual inertia control, [13]

Considering the synthetic inertia provision, the system depicted in Figure 2.19 is modified. In Fig-
ure 2.21, the units supplying this virtual kinetic energy are identified by EV , now contributing to the
equivalent inertia of the COI.

Figure 2.21: Power system with synthetic inertia provision

Figure 2.22 illustrates a comparison between the total amount of energy of a power system consisting
only of traditional generators (system A), a power system where some of the traditional generators were
substituted by decoupled generators that do not provide synthetic inertia (system B) and the same power
system with synthetic inertia provision (system C). The horizontal side represent the amount of momen-
ωe2
tum of inertia of each system, while the vertical side represent the quantity 2 , that compose Equation
(2.9). The area of each rectangle represents the total amount of stored kinetic energy, and the traced area
represents the released kinetic energy after a perturbation, related to the decrease of ωe,0 to ωe,1 .
The speed drop according to Equation (2.32) is smaller in the system that has more equivalent inertia.
Consequently, referring to Figure 2.22, the system less affected is System A. However, the virtual inertia
provided in System C brings an advantage in comparison to System C, as depicted in Figure 2.23.

27
Chapter 2. Power system stability

Figure 2.22: Schematic representation of kinetic energy exchange, [13]

Figure 2.23: Schematic representation of kinetic energy exchange, [13]

2.4 Loads in stability studies

In power system stability studies, loads are modelled with a considerable degree of simplification. The
amount of different types of loads connected to a single bus of a system is huge, such that their behavior is
approximated by static or dynamic equivalent models. While static models express power at any instant
of time as function of voltage and frequency at the load bus, the dynamic models consider variations in
time through differential equations.
The dynamic model is used to represent rotating loads, through the swing equation. Mainly, dynamic
loads are synchronous and induction machines, whose models were previously presented in this Chapter.
When the load is connected directly to the system, it presents an inertial behaviour equal to synchronous
inertia previously defined. To illustrate the inertial contribution of rotating loads in comparison to the
contribution of the generators of a real system, Figure 2.24 presents some of the results of [55], obtained
with a practical approach applied to the entire power system of Ireland and Northern Ireland. In the Fig-
ure, letters A to F denote the load inertia estimated considering the data recorded of 6 different outages,
happening in different dates when the system had different levels of RES penetration and different levels
of load connected. In the cases analyzed, the contribution of the inertial behaviour of the loads ranged
from 2 to 15% of the total inertia of the system.
The static model, instead, is used for representing resistive and lighting load but also as an approx-
imation of dynamic load components such as motor-driven loads [56]. In this model, the following
algebraic equations represent the active (PL ) and reactive (QL ) power components:

28
 2.4. Loads in stability studies

Figure 2.24: Load inertia with respect to system inertia, [55]

V a
P L = P0 ( ) (2.33)
V0

V b
QL = Q0 ( ) (2.34)
V0

where the subscript 0 denotes the initial operating point, and the exponents a and b, equal to 0, 1
or 2 represent the characteristic of the load as constant power, constant current or constant impedance,
respectively.

A composite load that comprises all the three characteristics can be represented by the so-called ZIP
model, expressed by the following polynomial expressions

V 2 V
PL = P0 [P1 ( ) + P 2 ( ) + P3 ] (2.35)
V0 V0

V 2 V
QL = Q0 [Q1 ( ) + Q2 ( ) + Q3 ] (2.36)
V0 V0

where the subscripts 1, 2 and 3 identify the proportion of the load that presents constant impedance,
constant current and constant power behaviours, respectively.

To represent frequency dependence, the ZIP model can be extended to

V 2 V
PL = P0 [P1 ( ) + P2 ( ) + P3 ](1 + Kpf ∆f )) (2.37)
V0 V0

V 2 V
QL = Q0 [Q1 ( ) + Q2 ( ) + Q3 ](1 + Kqf ∆f )) (2.38)
V0 V0

where Kpf and Kqf are dependence factors, ranging from 0 to 3 in the case of Kpf and ranging from
-2 to 2, in the case of Kqf , [57]. The quantity ∆f is the variation of the frequency at the load bus.

29
Chapter 2. Power system stability

2.5 Frequency control

Given the swing equation, the system faces a frequency variation whenever there is a power mismatch.
In a multi-machine system operating at synchronous speed, the frequency response to the perturbation
can be divided mainly in three phases, as depicted in Figure 2.25.

Figure 2.25: Responses of a system with frequency control

The first one is the inertial response (IR), as described in the previous Sections. Following the inertial
response, the system may stabilize at a new speed or loose synchronism, as seen previously in Figures
2.11(a) and 2.11(b) respectively. Forcing the frequency of a machine back to the initial frequency of
the system is done through the phases of Primary Frequency Control (PFC) and Secondary Frequency
Control (SFC).
The main player in frequency control is the speed governor, that is part of the turbine system respon-
sible for converting kinetic energy of the wind, water or thermal into mechanical energy, as represented
in Figure 2.26.

Figure 2.26: Frequency control system, [42]

Setting electronically a load reference for the turbine, according to a power-frequency characteristic,
the governor is able to control the frequency of the generator. Figure 2.27 depicts the case, with two

30
 2.6. Conclusion of the chapter

different characteristic of a frequency-dependent load represented. First, the generator operating at a

frequency f1 supplies a load PLold at the operation point 1. After a load change, the system operates at
point 2 (with frequency decrease). To force the machine back to f 1, the system must operate at point 3,
setting the power reference according to the x-axis.

Figure 2.27: Governor set-point example, [36]

The equivalent block diagram of a steam turbine governing system, as an example, is represented in
Figure 2.28, where R is the droop and TG is the time constant of the governor. The PFC takes place after
a delay of some seconds with reference to the perturbation, due to the time constants of the governors.
The main objective is to contain the frequency decrease and to bring it back to stable acceptable values.
The control of the setpoints is done exploring local measurements of frequency and power.

Figure 2.28: Speed governor block diagram, [36]

The SFC, instead, takes place after the PFC and aims at correcting set-points to compensate fre-
quency errors that remained after the previous control phase, restoring the nominal frequency of the
system. It explores measurements from SCADA and range from seconds to minutes. After SFC, a
tertiary frequency control takes place for economic dispatch and generation rescheduling [36].

2.6 Conclusion of the chapter

This chapter presented the theoretical basis that involves the stability of a power system to large pertur-
bations, considering synchronous and decoupled generators connected. Models of the machines were
presented, together with descriptions on how they relate to the problems of interest.

31
 CHAPTER 3
PMUs in Power Systems

T
he so-called Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) are devices first invented in the 80s for com-
puter based distance relaying, exploiting symmetrical component theory for power systems
protection. The original project was motivated by the idea of developing a relay based on digi-
tal synchronized measurements able to compete with the analogical devices that were the market leaders
in those days [15].
During the last years, PMUs showed advantages in many applications, not only in power system
protection but also in monitoring, operation and control. The possibility of visualizing the grid behaviour
through real-time measurements enabled communication, estimation and detection of parameters and
events that are useful for backing up studies and decisions. With the deployment of PMUs on the grid, a
real-time synchronized data acquisition system could be developed, under the name of WAMS.
This chapter aims at presenting the theoretical background involving the use of PMUs in power sys-
tems application, mainly focusing at making an introduction of the use of synchorphasors measurements
for inertia estimation.

3.1 Phasors and Synchrophasors

The whole theory involved with PMUs is based on synchophasors, an extension of the concept of phasors.
A (static) phasor is a representation of a time invariant sinusoidal signal in terms of its magnitude

33
Chapter 3. PMUs in Power Systems

and phase angle. Consider the sinusoidal signal


x(t) = Xcos(θ(t))
(3.1)
θ(t) = ωs t + φ


The phasor representation of (3.1) is

X X
X = √ ejφ = √ ∠φ (3.2)
2 2
and it is valid only for the single frequency ωs component. Figure 3.1 depicts the signal and its phasor
representation.

Figure 3.1: A sinusoid and its representation as a phasor, [15]

In electrical engineering, phasors are widely used for steady-state studies, since a common frequency
allows linear combinations of the phasors involved, in the so-called phasor arithmetic. In RLC circuits,
phasors also enable modelling the system with algebraic instead of differential equations, simplifying
studies and calculations.
The concept can be extended to time-varying phasors, assuming that the signal under study is nearly
sinusoidal and its amplitude and phase vary slowly over time. In power systems, the assumption is often
valid as the system is stably operated around a nominal frequency of 50Hz or 60Hz.
Modelling the sinusoid as n
v(t) = V (t)cos(ωs t + φ(t)) (3.3)

where ωs is the reference frequency and ωs t is the reference phase, it is possible to represent it as the
following phasor
X(t)
X(t) = √ ∠φ(t) (3.4)
2
As an example, Figure 3.2 depicts the case where the signal is sinusoidal but nearly constant over a
single 50Hz cycle. In fact, at t1 and t2 , the signal present the same phase and the same magnitude, where
2π
(3.4) is a good representation for many applications. After t2 , sampling the signal at T = ωs (range of
some ms), it is possible to evaluate a phasor representation at each time period.
In this way, as long as the signal does not suffer from a major change between each time interval,
each phasor representation is a good approximation to the portion of the signal related. Due to this
reason, it is possible to use dynamic phasors to study the system not only in steady state, but also under
slow electromechanical transients (that last from ms to s, as seen in Section 2.1). This representation is

34
 3.2. Phasor Measurement Unit

Figure 3.2: Composing phasors

not suitable for electromagnetic transients, as they last less than ms.
The most critical point in the use of time-varying phasor representation in power systems is the
common frequency ωs , as already said, but also a time reference for the measured phase angles is im-
portant. To evaluate the phase angle difference between the voltages at two buses in a phasor diagram,
a reliable common reference is needed. The key contribution that PMUs brought is that they are able
to address both points. First, PMUs are able to perform real-time phasor estimation, obtaining a funda-
mental frequency and a related phasor representation with high sampling rates. At second, they are able
to synchronize each sampling process for different signals in different units through Global Positioning
System (GPS) clocks, that provide a timing-reference stamp. With the stamp, every single phasor can be
compared according to the same reference. The technology enabled to extend the concept of phasors to
the concept of synchrophasors, with use in real-time applications [58].

3.2 Phasor Measurement Unit

A PMU is defined as a microprocessor based device that must be capable of providing synchrophasors,
frequency and RoCoF estimations from voltage and current signals measured at 50Hz [59] typically at 48
samples per cycle (or 1 sample at every 0.4ms). Nowadays, modern units may reach up to 128 samples
per cycle, i.e., 1 sample at every 0.16ms [60].
A general measurement scheme is depicted in Figure 3.3. First, current and voltage signals are
measured from the phase conductor through Current and Voltage Transformers. Subsequently, the signals
are processed through analog and digital filters and sampled, according to the Nyquist criterion. At the
PMU, another processing step treats the input wave signal over a time window to track its fundamental
frequency. After the fundamental frequency is tracked, the phasor calculation is performed (DFT or DFT-
based techniques are the most common procedures adopted), and time-stamped at every 20ms (usually).
The fundamental frequency tracking is done through different ways, depending on the manufacturer,
and respecting the standards defined in [59]. The most used techniques are the Complex Valued Least
Squares (CLS), the Prony method, the Polynomial Fitting and the Phase-Locked Loop (PLL), [58].
This enables the detection of off-nominal frequency values over a range of ±5 Hz, and in this case, a
magnitude and angle correction is considered to account for the frequency deviation.
Once the fundamental frequency is determined, the PMU is able to provide the frequency measure-

35
Chapter 3. PMUs in Power Systems

Figure 3.3: PMU measurement chain, [60]

ments, according to the following definition [59]. Considering the signal modelled in Equation (3.1), the
frequency is defined as

1 dθ(t)
f (t) = f0 + = f0 + ∆f (t) (3.5)
2π dt
where ∆f (t) is the deviation of frequency from nominal.
The RoCoF is defined as
d∆f (t)
ROCOF (t) = (3.6)
dt
where all the quantities were previously defined. However, this definition may lead to noisy estimations.
Better approaches are under development, and for the moment a polynomial fit is often suggested in
literature [15].
The time-referencing for Synchrophasors is done exploiting the pulse-per-second emitted by GPS.
The pulse is able to reach any receiver unit in Earth within 1µs, with leap-second correction, to provide
coordinated universal time, with reference to the Second-of-Century (SOC) counter.
A typical block diagram for a PMU representing the signal processing, the frequency tracking, the
time stamping and the phasor estimation is depicted in Figure 3.4. At the end, output phasors, frequency
and ROCOF measurements are sent to Data Concentrators through a modem.

Figure 3.4: PMU block diagram, [60]

Regarding the types of transient phenomena described in Section 2.1, the response of a PMU depends

36
 3.3. WAMS and SCADA

on the frequency components of the measured signal. The electromagnetic transients normally disappear
within a short time, and the effect of high-frequency components (103 to 106 Hz) are strongly attenuated
by the filters of the PMU. The exceptions are harmonics and some network resonances, with frequency
components ranging less than 103 Hz [60]. Electromechanical transients are also slower than the 103
Hz and consequently fully observable. The signal seen at a busbar in a multi-machine system is then a
superposition of the response of the many generators connected, with different frequency and magnitudes
contributions. Besides of more complexity, the output signal can essentially be seen as an amplitude and
phase modulation of the center frequency.
As long as the power system is operating close to nominal frequency (within ±5 Hz range, [59]), the
PMU will estimate the synchrophasors continuously at every new sample obtained. As long as the mod-
ulation frequencies are low, the estimated phasors will follow also the amplitude modulation. Regarding
unbalanced inputs, a PMU is able to report positive sequence phasors under the same standards.

3.3 WAMS and SCADA

After the measurement acquisition and data processing, the PMUs, that are installed at power system
substations, send the stamped data packages to Phasor Data Concentrator (PDC)s installed at remote
locations following communication protocols defined in [61]. The main functions of the PDCs are gath-
ering the packages, rejecting bad data, aligning the time-stamps and organize the temporary storage of
the recorded data. On a wide system, a hierarchical structure of PDCs is used, constituting a WAMS
able to monitor power system dynamics in real time and provide information to the system operators, for
situational awareness, protection and control.
The PDCs are also able to communicate with the data centers of the so-called SCADA, an earlier
monitoring system. The SCADA comprises common industrial instrumentations, sensors and measure-
ment devices for data acquisition, that is transmitted through a communication system and processed by
a dedicated unit. The SCADA have been used for monitoring general plants and equipments in different
areas of applications, such as energy, oil, gas, etc [62]. Figure 3.5 depicts a general SCADA system.

Figure 3.5: SCADA general scheme

Considering the application of SCADA in a Power System, first the data acquisition is performed
by voltmeters, ammeters, power consumption meters and other analogical or digital sensors installed in
the field to acquire data. At the substations, Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) that are able to
perform logic functions to control switches, relays and timers, are also integrated. All theses devices

37
Chapter 3. PMUs in Power Systems

communicate with a Remote Terminal Unit (RTU), a microprocessor based unit in charge of collecting
and transmitting data from the substation to the Master Terminal Unit (MTU), installed in a control
room. The data is processed and then sent to the Human-Machine Interface (HMI), that provides data
visualization of voltages, currents and power magnitudes, and also breaker switching status.
As the SCADA was a system developed to integrate the many measurement devices already in use,
it has a limited resolution of data acquisition, of 1 sample every 2 to 4 seconds, which restricts its use for
monitoring steady states only. Moreover, SCADA system is not able to do time stamping itself, which
prevents phase angle acquisition, limiting the acquisitions to magnitude of the signals only. Figure 3.6
presents a comparison on voltage magnitudes acquired following a disturbance.

Figure 3.6: Data comparison PMU vs SCADA, [63]

However, besides the resolution and practical advantages of PMUs, the SCADA systems are a tech-
nology more spread, since it has been developed and deployed first. Consequently, data provided by
SCADA systems are still useful to improve observability and monitoring in different applications, and
one can make use of such data together with PMU data available. A general representation of a WAMS
integrating both PMUs and SCADA is represented in Figure 3.7.

Figure 3.7: PMU and SCADA integration

A Summary of the differences between SCADA and PMU can be seen in Table 3.1, [60], [62].

38
 3.4. Applications of PMUs

Attribute SCADA PMU

Resolution 2-4 samples per cycle Up to 128 samples per cycle
Voltage and current phasors,
Measure Voltage and power magnitudes
frequency and ROCOF

Table 3.1: Comparisons between PMU and SCADA

3.4 Applications of PMUs

Main applications of PMUs in power systems can be categorized as: system monitoring, state estimation,
system protection and system control.

3.4.1 Monitoring
The advantage of providing voltage and current phasors, as well as frequency and ROCOF measurements
in real-time enabled operators to monitor different aspects of the behaviour of the grid.
The phase angle and frequency monitoring in real time is an important tool for the operator to detect
and study oscillations, perturbations, unbalance or stress indicators on the system, supporting counter-
acting decisions or investigating the reactions of automatic controls.
Some specific applications of monitoring are: phase angle difference assessment, detection and eval-
uation of disturbances and oscillations, voltage stability monitoring, thermal rating monitoring and is-
landing detection. As the topic of this thesis is related to rotor angle stability, the applications directly
related to phase angles will be detailed below. The interested reader may refer to [60], [64] for the other
ones.

3.4.1.1 Phase angle difference assessment

One application regarding direct phase angle monitoring is the assessment of the angle difference be-
tween voltages at different buses as an indicator of the stress of a system. Increasing voltage angle
differences is a signal of increasing stress, as power flows are function of angle differences. As an exam-
ple, Figure 3.8 presents the graphic interface of a software [65] indicating the stress between two voltage
buses, indicated in red.

Figure 3.8: RTDMS software - phase angle difference monitoring, [65]

39
Chapter 3. PMUs in Power Systems

By monitoring phase angle differences, the operator may diagnose line, load or generation tripping,
and counteracting actions including load shed, generation redispatch or provision of voltage support.

3.4.1.2 Detection and evaluation of oscillations

Another application, based on frequency monitoring, is the detection and evaluation of oscillations oc-
curring with the interaction of the different machines connected to a power system. Processing the
acquired data, it is possible to assess the modes of oscillation, classifying them according to their fre-
quency range and according and evaluating the participation of each state variable. Figure 3.9 depicts
the mode assessment of a measured signal.

Figure 3.9: Evaluation of oscillation modes, [64]

With these types of diagnosis, the operator can extract stability parameters and tune controllers to
damp the most critical modes. The consequences of oscillations range from stressing components, dam-
aging plants, tripping protections, degrading power quality to even evolving to large frequency excur-
sions, system separation and blackouts.
Traditionally, the type of oscillation mode that cause most concern are the electromechanical, ranging
from 0.1 to 4 Hz, and normally affecting a wide area of the interconnected system. These modes can be
further divided in local modes (1 to 4 Hz) and interarea (0.1 to 1 Hz). Here again, the decrease of inertia
is also a reported problem [64], affecting the frequency characteristics and consequently the damping of
these oscillation modes. Hence, the monitoring of oscillation modes in a system with high-penetration
of RES shows its importance. Figure 3.10 presents an example of measured data presenting oscillations
in a real grid.

3.4.1.3 Detection and evaluation of disturbances

Data recording enables post-event analysis disturbance detection, estimation of the time of disturbance,
estimation of the magnitude of disturbance, dynamic modelling estimation and parameter calibration

40
 3.4. Applications of PMUs

Figure 3.10: Real oscillation event recorded, [66]

(such as the inertia estimation, the topic of this thesis).

As an example, Figures 3.11 and 3.12 present power and frequency measured in a real event recorded
in Italy in 2017 [67]. From Figure 3.11, it is easy to tell that a power generation loss has happened.
Comparing with the recorded data at other points of the grid, it is possible also to identify the location
where the disturbance happened, according to the impact seen in the measured quantities. This type of
application is important to support system inspection, maintenance and repair.

Figure 3.11: Active power recorded, [67]

From Figure 3.12 it is possible to study the RoCoF and to estimate equivalent inertias. Moreover,
it is possible to evaluate the performance of the processes of frequency control and emergency control.
Comparing frequency data acquired in many different points, it is possible also to identify coherent
groups and study the dynamic behaviour of the system based on that model identification.
If a disturbance results in a system separation, each island formed will present a decoupled com-

41
Chapter 3. PMUs in Power Systems

Figure 3.12: Frequency recorded, [67]

mon frequency, and voltage angles will rotate relative to other islands. These phenomena can be ob-
served in PMUs interface. The application is not helpful only for detection but also for monitoring
re-synchronization procedures. Before PMUs, islanding applications were based on topology (breaker
status) estimation, without the possibility of observing out-of-step response of the generators.

3.4.2 State estimation

The process of state estimation consists in assigning a value to an unknown state variable based on
redundant measurements obtained, treated according to a decided criteria. It has been widely used in
power systems operation since its development to infer all the bus voltages (magnitudes and angles)
and power injections of a system, from measurements obtained at specific points at the grid. Monitoring
system states provides security assessment to system operators, bringing support to take possible security
countermeasures or optimization decisions.
The first contribution that PMUs brought to state estimation regards higher accuracy and reliability
on the measurements acquired. However, the contributions are much more than that. In state estimation,
a first key point regards the observability of the system: a concept that defines how well the states of
a system can be inferred from the measurements available. To improve observability, it is important to
monitor as many states as possible, and PMUs brought the possibility of acquiring data of some state
variables that were not directly measurable before (as voltage angles, for example). A second key point
relies on the fact that increasing measurements redundancy allows to increase also the accuracy of the
states estimated, since it enables the possibility of better detecting and processing bad data.
To illustrate, a conventional SCADA-based state estimation with bad-data processing is performed
on a 30-bus test system [60], with results presented in Figure 3.13(a). Considering the integration of
PMUs and SCADA, the results can be seen in Figure 3.13(b), with remarkable improvements.
Another major contribution is that before the deployment of PMUs, only static state estimation was
possible. Due to the reasons described above, PMUs already contributed to that. But in addition, PMUs
brought the possibility of not only monitoring voltages and currents over time during non-steady condi-
tions, but also performing dynamic state estimation to track states such as rotor speeds and rotor angle
positions. As already mentioned, PMUs enabled not only monitoring bus voltage and current angles, but
also high sampling rates and precise time-synchronization, essential in dynamic state estimation.

42
 3.4. Applications of PMUs

(a) SCADA-based SE (b) PMU-based SE

Figure 3.13: State Estimation (SE) - SCADA Vs. PMU, [60]

3.4.3 System protection and control

PMUs have been developed for improving the performance of protection functions of slow time response,
such as distance relays. However the impact in system protection is much wider, enabling the application
of new functions based on phasors comparison, the coordination of protection devices trough commu-
nication of synchronized measurements and the development of adaptive schemes, where the devices
involved react and adjust automatically to new conditions detected in the acquired data.

One example of new function enabled is the differential protection. In this type of application,
voltages and current synchrophasors are used to evaluate the difference between the currents flowing
in both ends of a monitored segment of transmission line, that can be used to detect the occurrence of
faults. Another type of new function is the System Integrity Protection Scheme (SIPS), proposed in [15],
[68]. The function is designed to detect and manage possible congestions in the monitored area, avoiding
islanding and load shedding.

The adaptive protection schemes where developed as a solution to the cases where common protec-
tion schemes experienced in false trips and cascading events in conditions of normal operation, but with
stressed system. Using real-time synchronized measurements, it is possible to relax some limits and
conditions of detections in specific determined cases, adding an adaptive characteristic for the protection
scheme. A first example is the adaptive out-of step protection, for detecting generators going out-of-step
and interpret when the situation could evolve to instability, providing the corresponding countermeasure.
Another example is the adaptive protection of transformers, used to adapt the protection according to off-
nominal turn ratios in tap changes. Also important is the adaptive system restoration function, adapting
the protection rules to back-up the re-energization of a blacked out system.

In control applications prior to the development of PMUs, the counteracting procedures were taken
based on local measurements or by mathematical model of equivalent systems. The advent of PMUs
made many control actions less model dependant, as many state variables are now observable remotely.
Moreover, nonlinear optimal control became a feasible solution, since synchrophasor measurements can
be used in comparison to the outputs of state models. Mainly, PMU-based control schemes are used for
damping oscillations and assisting protection functions.

43
Chapter 3. PMUs in Power Systems

3.5 A focus on the research of PMUs

Through all the applications described in the previous section, PMUs have been extensively researched
in academy since its invention. Figure 3.14 gives an idea on the crescent publication curve in IEEE
journals about the topic, from 1983 to 2014.

Figure 3.14: Number of publications about PMUs in IEEE journals, [69]

The first works approached software and hardware issues, addressing algorithms for tracking fre-
quency and estimating phasors, [70]–[72], a topic that still receives contributions year by year [58], [73],
[74]. With time, much attention has been devoted to defining standards, that evolved since 1994 [75] to
2011 [59], [61], the last published ones.
Through applications, grid monitoring and related aspects have been receiving wide attention. In
[76], [77], the perspectives of grid monitoring with PMUs are discussed. Dividing in categories, many
works have been published in event detection and location [19], [78]–[80], evaluation of oscillations [16],
[81], [82], model validation and calibration [21], [22], [83], [84], and stability assessment [85]–[87].
At the same time, PMUs have been incorporated in State Estimation studies, as presented in Subsec-
tion 3.4.2. One type of studies involves the cooperation between PMUs and SCADA, [88]–[91]. Another
type of studies concerns observability [92] and optimal placement of PMUs for state estimation, [93]–
[95]. The optimal placement of PMUs for other type of applications has also been extensively addressed
in the literature, [96]–[99].
In system protection applications, the original purpose for what PMUs have been developed, new
special protection schemes have been developed, together with new algorithms, counteracting schemes
and adaptive schemes, [100]–[104].
Regarding control applications, many approaches have been proposed to use PMU data for support-
ing preventive and corrective actions for guaranteeing stability [105]–[107]. Moreover, the field also
has studies on designing control systems for improving the performance of operational devices, such
as Power System Stabilizer (PSS), Automatic Voltage Regulators (AVR), High-Voltage DC (HVDC)
transmission lines, etc [108]–[111].
Also a lot of effort is dedicated on developing low cost PMUs and open-source solutions of software
and hardware [112]–[114], since commercial PMUs are still very expensive, reported as costing $40000

44
 3.6. PMUs around the world

to $180000 in 2014, [30] and costing $15000 the device for distribution grids [115].
Besides conferences and journals, many theoretical and application books have been published to-
tally dedicated [60], [64], [116], [117] or partially dedicated [17], [118], [119] to PMUs. Consider-
ing other types of media, two websites [120], [121] fully dedicated to PMUs are sustained to collect
publications, softwares, disclose and organize related events. An educational simulator package for
MATLAB-SIMULINK has been developed strictly for teaching about frequency measurement and pha-
sor estimation [122].

3.6 PMUs around the world

Since the development of the technology, the increasing advantages of having PMUs installed on the grid
spread their deployment all over the world.
USA, where the first prototype was developed, is still one of the countries most investing on PMUs.
One of the catalysts that helped the technology to spread was ironically the blackout in the Northeast of
the country, in 2003. Recorded data by existing PMUs at that time were useful to analyze the event and
seemed promising to improve the reliability of the system operation for the future. Since that moment,
more than 500 units have been installed in the grid until 2012, as depicted in Figure 3.15, and this number
increased to more than 1500 in 2018, as reported in [15].

Figure 3.15: PMUs in USA, [63]

In Mexico the technology arrived right after its development in US. Nowadays 300 units installed
in the country are reported, mostly used for oscillation analysis according to [15]. In 2005, WAMS
supported the synchronization of four different electric systems to the Mexican grid, assisting the control.
In South America, the arrival of PMUs was done primarily through the MedFasee project, an initiative
lead by the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Brazil, in 2003 [123]. The project consisted
in developing and installing PMUs in universities around the continent to monitor events in low voltage

45
Chapter 3. PMUs in Power Systems

grids, and soon expanded to more than 20 other participating universities in the country. As one of the
outputs of the project, a real-time representation of the estimated phasors of the interconnected system
can be visualized on [124]. Later on, the project was expanded to 12 other locations in Chile and
Argentina [125], and recently to Portugal [126]. Figure 3.16 presents a screenshot of phasors captured
at the Brazilian units that are part of the project. Recently, the Brazilian TSO made an agreement for the
deployment of 45 PMUs in the transmission system, [127], with expected installation lasting until 2022.

Figure 3.16: MedFasee project, Brazil, [124]

In Europe, PMUs are installed at universities as well, such as in Denmark and Sweden [15], and in
England, where some of the works cited in this thesis were done [19], [80], [128]. Regarding transmis-
sion systems, many PMUs were installed in the continent, as depicted in Figure 3.17.
Specifically in Italy, the deployment started in 2004 and in 2015 the country reportedly counted with
more than 60 units spread in the grid, with data exchange with three other countries, [130]. In 2019, the
number of installed units have increased to more than 100.
In Asia, China, Japan and India are the highlights. China is probably the leading country in the world
in numbers of PMUs installed, with more than 3000 units already commissioned. Reportedly all of their
500 kV and above substations, and the most important 220 kV substations are individually monitored,
and so are all 100 MW and above power plants. In India, each region counts with an average between
four and five units, and there are plans to install more than 4500 units in the upcoming years [15]. In
Japan, a university-based project already installed 12 units around the country [131].
Regarding Oceania and Africa, not much information is accessible. Australia already has PMUs
installed according to [132], but the number is unknown. Regarding New Zealand, 10 PMUs were
installed during a local program in 2011, [133]. Kenya reportedly had 6 units installed in 2012 [134],
while South Africa developed studies using 3 installed units in 2009, [135]. No further register was
found.

46
 3.7. Conclusion of the chapter

Figure 3.17: PMUs in Europe, 2010, [129]

3.7 Conclusion of the chapter

This Chapter presented an overview of the usage of PMUs in power systems. Also, a bibliographical
review was presented to give an idea of the study of synchophasors in academy, and a panorama of the
units installed worldwide was given.

47
 CHAPTER 4
Determination of Power Systems Inertia

A
s seen in Chapter 2, the constant of inertia is related to rotating masses. Starting from the
motion equations, one can describe the dynamic behavior of one or more machines, regarding
power imbalances. The advent of the PMUs enabled monitoring of dynamic phasors in time,
such that dynamic modelling and parameter estimation in real-time became possible and realistic.
This chapter presents the methodology adopted in this thesis to investigate the many possibilities of
estimating inertia based on synchrophasor measurements. To approach the general and specific questions
proposed in Section 1.2, the adopted methodology approached the problem in topics, as depicted in
Figure 4.1. There, part of a grid is represented together with an illustrative example of the delimitation
of each one of the topics approached.
Referring to Figure 4.1, the details of each topic are described below:

• Bibliographical review to identify the main methods for inertia estimation;

• Topic 1: Inertia estimation considering a PMU installed in the terminals of the generator:
In this topic, different inertia estimation methods were proposed and tested with simulated data.

• Topic 2: Inertia estimation considering a PMU installed at the boundary of an area.

Due to the complexity of this topic, it was divided into smaller subtopics to approach progressively
all the aspects related to the elements that are inside the area monitored and that can interfere in
the inertia estimations. The subtopics consist in estimating inertia considering:

– 2.1: Area containing single generator, transformer and transmission lines; Perturbation out-
side;

49
Chapter 4. Determination of Power Systems Inertia

– 2.2: Area containing coherent and non-coherent generators, transformers and transmission
lines; Perturbation outside;
– 2.3: Area containing loads, coherent and non-coherent generators, transformers and trans-
mission lines; Perturbation outside;
– 2.4: Area containing loads, coherent and non-coherent generators, transformers and trans-
mission lines; Perturbation inside;

• Topic 3: Inertia estimation considering spread PMUs:

– 3.1: At the boundaries of an area (more than one boundary for each area);
– 3.2: At the boundaries and inside the considered area;

• Topic 4: Inertia estimation following normal load variations in normal operating conditions.
This topic involved two different approaches:

– 4.1: Estimation using model estimation methods;

– 4.2: Estimation using a state-space statistically-based identification method;

Figure 4.1: Methodology infographic

The organization of the remaining of this Chapter is divided according to the Topics list:
Section 4.1 presents a general bibliographical review, describing the state of the art of inertia estima-
tion methods with PMUs.
Section 4.2 explain the estimation methods studied in this thesis, divided into:

• Subsection 4.2.1, presenting the Direct Least-Squares Method, used mainly in Topic 1;

• Subsection 4.2.2, presenting two Model Estimation Methods, with direct or auxiliary use in all
Topics;

• Subsection 4.2.3, presenting the Extended Kalman Filter method, used in this thesis in Topics 1
and 2 for comparison;

50
 4.1. General Bibliographical Review

• Subsection 4.2.4, presenting the auxiliary Ward Equivalent Method to perform inertia estimation
with model reduction, useful in Topics 3 and 4;

• Subsection 4.2.5, presenting an auxiliary method to estimate the equivalent moving power of an
area, useful mainly in Topics 2.4, 2.5, 3 and 4.1;

• Subsection 4.2.6, presenting an inertia estimation method for ambient conditions, used in Topic
4.2.

Section 4.3 brings a summary of the presented methods, comparing the requirements, assumptions,
inputs and outputs.
Section 4.4 brings the final comments of the chapter.

4.1 General Bibliographical Review

As presented in Section 2.2.2, the inertia constant of a synchronous machine can be calculated from its
definition, according to Equation (2.8). By knowing the geometry and the construction parameters, the
constant of inertia of each machine is trivial. Then, if the TSO knew each synchronous unit connected
to the grid, together with its manufacturer data, equivalent inertias could be calculated through (2.23), at
least for generating machines. However, normally construction parameters are not known.
Since the unbundling of power systems, generation is open to competition of different companies.
This makes it difficult for the TSO to have online information about every connected unit to the grid.
Together with the inertia of rotating loads, they form a "hidden inertia" that TSO’s cannot easily observe
[31], [136]. Considering also the contribution of the upcoming synthetic inertia, the idea of estimating an
equivalent inertia by the construction parameters of the connected synchronous units is an approximation
that does not seem reasonable anymore. Hence, the necessity of finding other solutions arose, and with
the advent of PMUs, the possibility of using synchrophasor measurements to estimate inertia in power
systems looks promising.
Many studies regarding inertia estimation have been developed over the past few years. Roughly, they
can be divided in large-perturbation, small-perturbation and ambient conditions approaches; besides,
some of the techniques can be adapted to one or another purpose. On the field of large-perturbations,
methods based on post-event analysis are proposed to estimate the inertia constant of one or more ma-
chines regarding the studied transient. Regarding the small-perturbations, normally inter-area oscilla-
tions are used for identifying the inertia of the contributing machines and of coherent areas. And under-
ambient conditions, normal load variations are studied based on statistical and historical data to identify
patterns and parameters.
A particular type of approach explored in the literature are the Kalman Filter (KF) based techniques.
The KF is a prediction-correction type estimator that applies measurements observed to a model and
simulates the response, calibrating the outputs over time. These methods have applications for parameter
estimation considering perturbations or ambient conditions.

Large perturbation approaches

A method that proposes a selected window to analyze intervals of power and frequency measurements
to estimate the inertia of a monitored generator is presented in [128]. The approach assumes small
frequency deviations, neglecting the damping. In [19] the methodology is extended to detect and estimate

51
Chapter 4. Determination of Power Systems Inertia

simultaneously the time of disturbance, which reduces false estimations of inertia. A similar approach is
proposed in [20], exploring directly variations of power and frequency from measurements through the
Swing Equation, neglecting damping and rotating loads.
In [27], a dynamic regressor extension and mixing procedure is proposed assuming monitored all the
generators participating in primary frequency control. The perturbation considered are generator outages
(large perturbation) and rescheduling events.
Reference [34] proposes a method to estimate an equivalent transient reactance of a generator, such
that the rotor angle can be calculated and subsequently applied on the swing-equation, later solved
through Least-Squares. Reference [84], instead, proposes a modified Least-Squares method for both
parameter estimation and initial values of state variables, and compares the obtained results with other
methods in the literature.
All the works cited present results on inertia estimation of single machines, not exploring equivalent
areas. The method presented in [34], however, is suitable for area studies and is tested in this thesis for
this purpose.

Small perturbation approaches

In [16], a method to estimate the inertia divided in three steps is proposed: first it performs a parame-
ter estimation to obtain an equivalent transient reactance of a generator represented with the second-order
model, then it carries out a modal decomposition and finally it identifies the inertia of the machine un-
der study solving the Swing Equation. The approach is further explored in [17], [18], [137], [138]. In
[139], the technique is expanded and applied for dynamic equivalencing to consider PMU installed at the
boundary bus of an area that comprises coherent machines and transmission lines. For small-perturbation
studies, these approaches are limited to coherent areas because they depend on modal decomposition,
such that local oscillations between non-coherent units interferes on the method.
The paper [140] proposes a Least-Squares (LS)-based system identification method for a power sub-
system. Equivalent machines can be obtained assuming coherency. In [141], a closed loop scheme is
proposed to estimate inertia with the use of a probe. In [142], PMU measurements are used for modal
decomposition, and a LS based approach that makes use of the Newton-Raphson method and the Modal
Assurance Criterion is proposed for inertia estimation.
As one of the main focuses of this thesis is to consider spread PMUs installed following criteria that
are not necessarily estimating inertia, coherency is a strong assumption to consider. When monitoring
areas with non-coherent machines, the local oscillations make it difficult estimating inertia based on the
modes of oscillation, such that this research direction was not followed in this thesis. However, some
of the methods proposed that deal with oscillations can be adapted for other uses, such [16], that was
adapted in this thesis for estimating inertia following large perturbations or normal load variations.

Normal load variation approaches

While the previous methods depend on the occurrence of a perturbation to work, few works in the
literature approach normal load variations to estimate the inertia of the system through stochastic meth-
ods.
In [23], an algorithm is formulated as a Gaussian Mixture Model with temporal dependence encoded
as Markov Chains, and the algorithm is trained with historical data of the system to be capable of identi-
fying patterns and provide estimations following frequency measurements of PMUs. In [24], the grid is

52
 4.1. General Bibliographical Review

represented with a full Differential Algebraic Equation system and the parameters are estimated through
the solution of a Bayesian inverse problem, in a statistical inference procedure. The approach proposed
is quite complex, and the author reported concerns regarding execution time for on-line applications.
An autoregressive-moving-average (ARMAX) is used in [28] for polynomial modelling, expressing the
relationship between inputs, outputs and noise. Inertia is estimated through system identification.
All the methods proposed require a large quantity of historical data and the knowledge of important
parameters. Moreover, execution time is a major concern, since the techniques depend on data training,
calibration and system identification.

Kalman Filter approaches

A KF is basically a method that proposes a predictor-corrector scheme to minimize the estimated
error covariance between measurements and an assumed model for the system [143]. The approaches
vary on how the model is stated, and which are the inputs and outputs. The minimum set of state variables
are rotor angles and inertia, that are estimated according to assumed initial values during the evolution
of the method.
In [21] and [22], an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) is proposed, a version of the KF that approximates
optimality of Bayes’ rule through linearization. These approaches use the classic generator second-order
set of equations as a predictive model for the system and use active and reactive power (that can be
calculated in function of measured voltages and currents) as playback for the corrective part. In [83],
instead, voltages and currents are proposed as playback equations, while active power is considered as
an input. An Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) is proposed in [144], that differs on how to deal with
the approximations of Gaussian random variables in the core of the method, applying a Monte-Carlo
simulation technique instead of the linearizations used in the EKF. Also, frequency control is considered
in this paper in the prediction model.
Recently, new contributions have been added to the field of KF-based methods. In [26], a multi-area
dynamic state estimation is proposed, solving an optimization problem with an EKF constraint. The
areas are previously defined assuming coherency, and full observability is assumed. In [29], the EKF
methodology is improved to gain robustness to errors and data loss, and results with ambient data are
presented. Also, full observability is needed.
The main requirement of KF-based methods as seen in the literature is monitoring individually the
units (or assuming full observability). Only in this condition it is possible to have a good initial estimate
of the parameters to be calibrated, crucial for the accuracy of the method. Moreover, the convergence
of the method depends on the difference between the model proposed and the system observed: this can
be negligible when monitoring individual generators, but may be significantly different when dealing
with areas with non-coherent units. Increasing the complexity of the models could improve the accuracy,
but there is a limitation on the amount of variables that PMUs can directly observe. In other words,
PMUs are able to monitor voltages, currents, powers and frequency. Other parameters such as transient
reactances, constants of inertia, damping and parameters that model AVRs, PSSs and governors can only
be observed and calibrated indirectly. Hence, increasing the complexity of the models without increasing
the amount of information acquired from the measurement model may actually decrease the accuracy of
the estimations, since the number of dependent variables to be estimated increases.

Summary of the review

53
Chapter 4. Determination of Power Systems Inertia

Different methods and approaches have been proposed in the literature for estimating inertia.
Considering generators individually monitored, consistent methods have already been proposed.
However, it was not possible to identify a definitive and general one, since the methods mostly depend
on different requirements and assumptions. Hence, the field seems still open not only for comparison
studies but also for proposing new methods and approaches.
Regarding area studies, few works could be found in the literature. All of them depend on full
observability (which is similar to the assumption of monitoring individually the generating units) or
depend on monitoring coherent groups. However, commercial PMUs are still very expensive and most
of the Countries still do not count with a high number of units, as seen in Section 3.6. Hence, one may
ask what type of information it is possible to achieve for the PMUs available on the system. In this
condition, the study becomes challenging because the monitored area may contain generators that are
not-coherent, loads and perturbations. These issues open many topics for studies.

4.2 Estimation methods

In this section, seven different methods are presented in the order they were needed in the research to
approach the proposed topics. To clarify, some of the methods were already proposed in the literature
and were tested in the context of this thesis, such as the ’Least-squares method’, described in Subsection
4.2.1, the ’Variance method’, described in Subsection 4.2.2.2 and the EKF, described in Subsection 4.2.3.
The novel methods, strategies and approaches are the ’Iterative-IME’ method, presented in Subsec-
tion 4.2.2.1, the ’Inertia estimation with model reduction’, presented in Subsection 4.2.4, the ’Equivalent
moving power estimation method’, presented in Subsection 4.2.5 and the ’Dynamic matrix method’,
presented in Subsection 4.2.6.

4.2.1 Inertia estimation through direct Least-squares method

Given the system presented in Figure 4.2, consider PMUs installed at bus 1 and 2 providing system
frequency measurements, voltage (Vi ∠θi ) and current (Ii ∠αi ) synchrophasors. Here, only one generator
was assumed in each side of the radial path, but note that Gi can be an equivalent generator representing
all the machines of that area.

Figure 4.2: Radial path

Considering the second-order model for each synchronous machine, the swing equation for machine

54
 4.2. Estimation methods

i can be stated as:

Hi d2 δi (t) dδi (t)

0 2
+ Di = ∆Pi (t), p.u. i = 1, 2 (4.1)
πf dt dt

where f 0 is the nominal frequency of the system [Hz], δi (t) is the angle [rad] of the internal voltage Ei ,
Hi and Di are the inertia [s] and the damping constant [p.u.], and ∆Pi is the power imbalance [p.u.]
related to the machine i, respectively.
Some assumptions can be made to make Equation (4.1) dependent only on observed variables and
on the unknown constants Hi and Di :

• The active power exiting bus i through the interconnection line at time t can be calculated from
the measured variables, i.e., voltages and currents (phasors). This variable will be represented by
Pi ;

• The moving power in comparison to the electromagnetic power generated by synchronous ma-
chines is assumed to have a slowly varying behavior, such that ∆Pi (t) ≈ Pist − Pi (t), where Pist
is the steady state value of Pi before the perturbation;

• The first and second derivatives of the rotor angle δi are calculated through finite differences
method, again from PMU outputs;

• The difference between the angle of the internal voltage δi and the measured voltage angle θi is
negligible (transient reactances considered negligible).

By doing so, the following overdetermined system can be stated:

d2 δi (t1 ) dδi (t1 )

 
 dt2 dt   



 ∆Pi (t1 )
   
 d2 δ (t )  ∆P (t ) 
 i 2 dδi (t2 ) 
 
T 
i 2 

 dt2

dt  Hi
  .. 
.. .. Di =  .  (4.2)
 πf0
   

 . .  
 ..



 .. ..

  . 
. .
   

 2
 ∆Pi (tM )
d δi (tM ) dδi (tM )

dt2 dt

Or, in matricial form:

Ai Xi = Bi (4.3)

where: h i h iT h i
d2 δi (t) dδi (t) Hi
Ai = dt2 dt
, Xi = πf0 Di , Bi = ∆Pi (t)

The system 4.3 can be solved through the Least-squares method,

X̂i = (ATi Ai )−1 ATi Bi (4.4)

where X̂ is the estimation of X that provides the optimum values of Hi and Di , [34].
The solution of Equation (4.4) gives inertia and damping estimations related to the samples of power
d2 δi
imbalance and ROCOF considered as input. If during the time window considered ∆Pi and dt2 do not

55
Chapter 4. Determination of Power Systems Inertia

vary, it is not possible to estimate Hi . Hence, the method depends on selecting a proper time window for
the post-event estimations.
For real time, a sliding time window can be adopted to provide continuous estimations of inertia,
as depicted in Figure 4.3. In this graphic example, a time window of 300 samples (6s) was chosen to
slide over the samples of power imbalance and ROCOF. Considering the data from t=15s to t=21s (TW1,
represented in red), the inertia at t=21s is obtained. Sliding the window to consider the samples of ∆P
and ROCOF between t=16s to t=22s (TM2, represented in green), the inertia at t=22s is obtained.

10-3

0.02 1.5 20
P
1 H1
0.015 ROCOF
1
1
0.01
Power imbalance (p.u.)

0.5
ROCOF (p.u./s)
10
0.005

Inertia(s)
0 0

-0.005
-0.5
0
-0.01
TW1
-1
-0.015
TW2
-0.02 -1.5
-10
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
Time (s) Time (s)

Figure 4.3: Sliding time window scheme

The advantage of the direct Least-Squares method is its practicality, and for that reason was the first
one studied. The method was used to obtain the results presented in Section 5.1.1. The disadvantage
is that the assumption of δi ≈ θi may lead to high errors on the estimations. In that case, methods to
estimate the transient reactance are needed.

4.2.2 Model estimation methods

In cases where the difference between the angle of the internal voltage and the measured voltage angle
(at a terminal bus or at a boundary bus) is not negligible (δi 6= θi , referring to Figure 4.2), an alternative
approach is to represent the system as a dynamic equivalent and estimate properly the internal angle δi .
For that purpose, two different methods were studied, each one with its properties. As in this thesis they
are used with the same objective, i.e., building dynamic equivalents, they will be called here as Model
Estimation Methods (MEM).

4.2.2.1 Iterative-IME Method

The Inter-Area Model Estimation (IME) method was first proposed in [17] for building dynamic equiv-
alents of coherent areas and estimating inertia following oscillations. This method was adapted for the
purposes of this thesis, to deal with perturbations and areas that are not necessarily coherent, and the
work was published in [32].
Comparing [17] and [32], the first steps of the methods are the same, but some innovations were
proposed in [32] for the following steps. First, a novel iterative approach was included to consider
losses without the need of increasing the number of measurement points and without loosing accuracy.
At second, the method aims at first estimating the transient reactance of the equivalent machine, then

56
 4.2. Estimation methods

calculates the internal voltage phasor and later estimates the equivalent inertia through LS method. This
enables the use of the method following perturbations, and moreover, to study non coherent areas, as
the modal decomposition step of the method proposed in [17] is not used. Due to the iterative strategy
proposed here (and in [32]), this technique will be called as Iterative-IME method to differ from the
method presented in [17].
Given the power system of Figure 4.2, where PMUs are monitoring the terminals of two generators,
the goal is to estimate the transient reactances xi and calculate the internal voltages Ei accordingly.
Alternatively, if PMUs are instead monitoring the boundary of two different areas, the goal of this method
is to find out the parameters of equivalent generators, as GA1 and GA2 in Figure 4.4. Each area is
represented by a voltage source E1 and E2 behind its own equivalent reactance x1 and x2 . The two
areas are interconnected by an interconnection line with impedance ZTL . Measurements are assumed to
be acquired at buses 1 and 2 by PMUs.

Figure 4.4: Equivalent system

The procedure to determine the equivalent parameters of each area requires the voltages and currents
phasors in both ends of the radial path. With those phasors, it is possible to calculate the impedance ZT L .
Then, to estimate the transient reactances x1 and x2 , and the internal voltages E1 and E2 , the following
steps are required:
Step 1: The voltage Vi of each measurement point i, can be expressed in terms of the electrical
distance to the voltage sources E1 and E2 :

Vi (t) = ZiE2 E1 (t) + ZiE1 E2 (t) (4.5)

where ZiE2 is the electrical distance of point i to the voltage source E2 and ZiE1 is the electrical distance
of point i to the voltage source E1 . Both ZiE1 and ZiE2 are functions of the unknowns X1 , X2 and known
ZLT .
Step 2: Take the magnitude of Vi .
q
Vi (t) = E1 (t)2 Ψ2Ai + E2 (t)2 Ψ2Bi + 2E1 (t)E2 (t)ΨAi ΨBi cos($i (t)) (4.6)

where E1 and δ1 are the magnitude and angle of the voltage E1 , while E2 and δ2 are the magnitude and

57
Chapter 4. Determination of Power Systems Inertia

angle of the voltage E2 and the other parameters are defined below.

|ZiE2 |
ΨAi = (4.7)
|ZTot |

|ZiE1 |
ΨBi = (4.8)
|ZTot |
$i (t) = µAi − µBi + δ1 (t) − δ2 (t) (4.9)
imag(ZiE2 ) imag(ZTot )
µAi = arctan − arctan (4.10)
real(ZiE2 ) real(ZTot )
imag(ZiE1 ) imag(ZTot )
µBi = arctan − arctan (4.11)
real(ZiE1 ) real(ZTot )
ZTot = jx1 + jx2 + ZTL (4.12)

Step 3: Consider its variation ∆Vi with respect to a change in ∆δ can be linearized about an equi-
librium point 0
E1 (t)E2 (t)ΨAi ΨBi sin ($i (t))
∆Vi = [∆δ2 − ∆δ1 ] (4.13)
|V0i |
Step 4: Define the normalized voltage Vni as

Vni (t) , ∆Vi (t)V0i (4.14)

where it is worth noticing that both ∆Vi (t) and Vni (t) are time dependent. As the PMUs will provide a
number of samples within the considered time interval, the normalized voltages can be computed based
on the PMU output. The approach for this step is different from the one proposed in [17], as it considers
more than one point in the equations.
Step 5: Let us assume that three PMUs are installed at points 1, 2 and 3. Point 3 can be either a
physical bus (where a real PMU is installed) or a virtual bus somewhere along the transmission line,
where data can be computed based on the data coming from the PMUs installed at 1 and a 2 and known
ZT L .
Write the following expressions:

Vn3 (t) ΨA3 ΨB3 sin ($3 (t))

= (4.15)
Vn1 (t) ΨA1 ΨB1 sin ($1 (t))

Vn2 (t) ΨA2 ΨB2 sin ($2 (t))

= (4.16)
Vn1 (t) ΨA1 ΨB1 sin ($1 (t))
This expressions cannot be solved in this step because δ1 (t) and δ2 (t) (that appear inside the functions
$i (t)) are not directly measured.
Step 6: Consider for the moment the resistance of the transmission line negligible (the relevant
results are characterized by the subscript I): RLT = 0.
Taking one of the generators as a reference (e.g. δ1 = 0), expressions 4.15 and 4.16 can be simplified
to be dependent only on system parameters:

Vn3I (t) x3 x3
= E2 E1 (4.17)
Vn1I (t) x1E2 x1E1

58
 4.2. Estimation methods

Vn2I (t) x2 x2
= E2 E1 (4.18)
Vn1I (t) x1E2 x1E1
Call the right hand side of equations 4.17 and 4.18 as

x3E2 x3E1
αI = (4.19)
x1E2 x1E1

x3E2 x3E1
βI = (4.20)
x1E2 x1E1
where the subscript I denotes the lossless case.
Rewrite expressions 4.17 and 4.18 as:

Vn3I = αI Vn1I (4.21)

Vn2I = βI Vn1I (4.22)

where Vn1I , Vn2I and Vn1I are vectors consisting of a limited number of samples of the variables
Vn1 (t),Vn2 (t) and Vn3 (t), respectively.
The over-determined systems (4.21) and (4.22) can be solved for αI and βI using the linear Least
Squares method:
α̂I = (Vn1I T Vn1I )−1 Vn1I T Vn3I (4.23)

β̂I = (Vn1I T Vn1I )−1 Vn1I T Vn2I (4.24)

With the solutions of (4.23) and (4.24), equations (4.19) and (4.20) can be solved for x1I and x2I ,
the internal reactances of the equivalent machines G1 and G2 for the lossless case.
Step 7: At this point, in order to take into account the resistive feature of the interconnection line,
which is one of the contributions of the present method, the estimated x1I and x2I can be combined
with the measurement coming from the PMUs to compute the estimate of internal voltages E1I (t) =
E1I (t)∠δ1I (t) and E2I (t) = E2I (t)∠δ2I (t) through Ohm’s law.
Step 8: The values of the internal voltages newly computed make it possible to come back to ex-
pressions (4.15) and (4.16). As δ1 (t) and δ2 (t) are not directly measured, the angles δ1I (t) and δ2I (t)
obtained in Step 5 are used in this step as an approximation.
The values of the internal voltages newly computed make it possible to determine an improved lin-
earization of voltage magnitudes at the installation point of PMUs and to provide updated expressions
for the updated normalized voltages Vn1II , Vn2II and Vn3II :

Vn3II ΨA3 ΨB3 sin (µA3 − µB3 − δ1I − δ2I )

= (4.25)
Vn1II ΨA1 ΨB1 sin (µA1 − µB1 − δ1I − δ2I )

Vn2II ΨA2 ΨB2 sin (µA2 − µB2 − δ1I − δ2I )

= (4.26)
Vn1II ΨA1 ΨB1 sin (µA1 − µB1 − δ1I − δ2I )
where the underline denotes vector and the subscript II denotes the present step, considering RT L 6= 0.
Calling αII the right hand side of equation (4.25), and βII the right hand side of equation (4.26),
both over-determined systems can be solved using least squares method to obtain updated x1II and x2II ,
similar to what was done in Step 6.
At this point, again, the updated internal voltages EiII (t) can be computed by Ohm’s law, using the

59
Chapter 4. Determination of Power Systems Inertia

newly estimated x1II and x2II .

Step 9: Test if (xjI − xjII ) is lower than a tolerance (10−6 p.u. used), where j = 1, 2 denotes the
Area of the calculated equivalent reactance. If not, set xjI = xjII and go back to Step 7. If yes, the
iterative process of reactance estimation converged. Proceed to Step 10.
Step 10: In this step, the area equivalent inertia is estimated.

HAj d2 δi (t)
= ∆PAj (t), p.u. (4.27)
πf 0 dt2

where HAj is the inertia constant and ∆PAj is the power imbalance of Area j (j = 1, 2), f 0 is the
nominal frequency of the system. Due to the slow behavior of the moving power in comparison to the
st
electromagnetic power generated by synchronous machines, ∆Pj (t) ≈ Pintj
− Pintj (t), where Pintj
st
is the power exiting Area j through the interconnection line and Pintj
is its value in steady state (before
the perturbation). Equation (4.27) can be solved through Least Squares method for HAj . This step is
another novel contribution in comparison to the method proposed in [16].
The method proposed here was used to obtain the results presented in Subsections 5.1.2, 5.1.3 and
5.2.1. The advantage of this method is the possibility of estimating both the inertia of an individually
monitored generator and the inertia of an equivalent generator, representing an area composed by co-
herent or non-coherent machines. The disadvantage is the need of monitoring both ends of a radial
interconnection path.

4.2.2.2 "Variance" Method

This method was proposed in [34] and studied in the context of this thesis for building dynamic equiva-
lents, as an alternative to situations where the Iterative-IME method cannot be used (due to the require-
ment of radial paths).
To estimate the transient reactance of the equivalent machine, the method presented in [34] is based
on the variance of the magnitude of the internal voltage, defined as a function of the variables of the grid.
For the sake of simplicity, this method will be referred as the "Variance method" in this thesis.
Referring to Figure 4.4, this approach is based in stating equations to obtain x1 and x2 using Ohm’s
Law. The second order model for the equivalent machine GAi (i = 1, 2) is assumed, with the magnitude
of voltage |Ei | constant. Based on the expression of the variance of |Ei |, the method is able estimate
x1 and x2 without needing to know exactly |Ei |. Later, the voltages Ei ∠δi are calculated based on the
reactances estimated, and the inertia is estimated related to the behavior of the dynamic equivalents. The
steps of the methodology can be summarized as follows:
Step 1: State the Ohm’s Law for each equivalent area:

Ei (t)∠δi (t) = (jxi )Ii (t)∠αi (t) + Vi (t)∠θi (t) (4.28)

Step 2: State the magnitude of Ei . This procedure can be seen in Appendix B. The final expression
is: q
|Ei | = x2i |Ii |2 + |Vi |2 + 2xi Qi (4.29)

such that
Ei2 = x2i Ii2 + Vi2 + 2xi Qi (4.30)

60
 4.2. Estimation methods

Step 3: Since the second order model for the synchronous machine is considered, i.e., represent-
ing the generator by a voltage source with constant magnitude (but with angular variation) behind a
reactance, it can be stated that:

Ei ≈ constant → Ei2 ≈ constant → V ar(Ei2 ) ≈ 0 → (Ei2 − Ei2 )2 ≈ 0 (4.31)

where Var denotes the Variance and Ē = mean(E).

Step 4: Fitting (4.30) into (4.31), write

(Ei2 − Ei2 )2 ≈ 0 → (x2i Ii2 + Vi2 + 2xi Qi ) − (x2i Ii2 + Vi2 + 2xi Qi ) ≈ 0 (4.32)

Step 5: Rearranging, state the following equation for every time step t,

x2i (Ii2t − Ii2t ) + xi (2(Qit − Qit )) ≈ (Vi2t − Vi2t ) (4.33)

Expression (4.33) can be solved for xi using nonlinear least squares techniques. In the present work,
a Matlab function (lsqnonlin function) is used in its default configuration.
This method was directly used to produce the results presented in Subsections 5.1.3, 5.2.1, 5.3.1 to
5.3.3, and partially used to produce the results presented in Sections 5.2.3, 5.4.2 and 5.5.1. The advantage
of this method is the requirement of only one measurement point to estimate the inertia of a generator
individually monitored or to estimate the inertia of an area monitored at its boundary bus. Due to this
advantage, this method was used in combination with the Ward equivalent method in the methodology
proposed in Subsection 4.2.4.

4.2.3 Extended Kalman Filter

The EKF was studied in the context of this thesis for comparison with the MEM on inertia estimation of
single machines or equivalent machines. The EKF is a method for parameter calibration, updating the
initial estimations of the parameters of interest according to measurements acquired at the system.
Traditionally, angle stability analysis has been seen as a direct mathematical problem. The classical
second order generator model is used to represent the dynamic behavior of a synchronous machine
following a perturbation, and by feeding the model with the internal parameters of the machine one can
predict the post-fault rotor swings, key point to assess stability. Figure 4.5 depicts this problem.

Figure 4.5: Rotor swings direct problem

The transient analysis model reported in Figure 4.5 refers to the application of the second order model

61
Chapter 4. Determination of Power Systems Inertia

of the generator, described in Equation (4.34).


 δ̇(t) = ω(t)

h i (4.34)

 ω̇(t) = P − E(t)V (t) sin(δ(t)−θ(t)) ω0
m x0d − Dω(t) 2H p.u.

where all the variables were previously defined.

The parameter estimation problem is depicted in Figure 4.6, and could be faced as an inverse problem
of the one represented in Figure 4.5. The idea is to make use of measurements of voltage (Vi ) and current
(Ii ) coming from PMUs to determine the internal parameters of the machine under study, using a Kalman
Filter as an observer of the dynamic process. The other inputs required in the method will be discussed
later in this subsection.

Figure 4.6: Parameter estimation inverse problem

The Kalman Filter (KF) is a prediction-correction method based on modelling a dynamic process in
state-space equations and comparing their predictions with observations over time. In statistical terms,
it minimizes the estimated error covariance when some determined conditions are met. The Extended
Kalman Filter (EKF), which will be described in this Section, is a version of the KF where a linearization
about the current mean and covariance is proposed to deal with nonlinear processes, [143].
Consider that the dynamic process is governed by

xk = f (xk−1 , uk , wk−1 ) (4.35)

where xk is the state variable x at the discrete time instant k, f is a nonlinear function of the previous
state of x, represented by xk−1 , the input uk and the process noise wk−1 .
The measurement model is governed by

zk = g(xk , vk ) (4.36)

where zk is the observation variable, g is the nonlinear algebraic function that relates zk to xk and vk ,
that is the measurement noise.
Providing the initial estimates for the ’a priori’ state variable x̄A
0 and for the ’a priori’ estimate error
covariance matrix P0A , the prediction-correction scheme depicted in Figure 4.7 is executed for every
time step k. In the figure, the subscript ’A’ denotes the variables ’a priori’ and the subscript ’F’ denotes
df df dg dg
the variables ’a posteriori’. Also, Fk = dx , Wk = dw , Gk = dx , Vk = dv , Qk is the process noise
covariance matrix, Rk is the measurement noise covariance matrix and I is identity.
The matrix Qk enables the method to consider a gap between the process model and the measurement

62
 4.2. Estimation methods

acquired. In practical terms, this brings robustness to the method to consider a model with a certain
degree of simplification in respect to the real process. Similarly, the matrix Rk brings robustness against
small measurement errors. Both Qk and Rk must be known or tuned according to the system under
study. One may refer to [143] for further details on the EKF theory.

Figure 4.7: EKF scheme

Following the approach proposed in [22], the EKF is suggested as an observer of a dynamic model
of a synchronous generator, calibrating inertia and damping parameters through the comparison between
the state variable predictions and corrections based on the measurements from the machine’s terminals.

The dynamic process is represented by


 δ̇(t) = ω(t) + w1

h i (4.37)
 ω̇(t) = P − E(t)V (t) sin(δ(t)−θ(t)) − Dω(t) ωb + w

m x0 2H 2
d

where wj , j = 1, 2 are variables that represent the noise of the selected process model.

The measurement model is

E(t)V (t) sin(δ(t)−θ(t))

 Pe (t) =
 x0d + v1
(4.38)
 Q (t) = −( V (t)2 −E(t)V (t) cos(δ(t)−θ(t)) ) + v

e x0 2
d

where v1 and v2 are the noise variables related to the measurement model and Pe and Qe are the active
and reactive power injected in the grid at the connection point. Apart the fact the active and reactive
power are not directly measured by PMUs, they can be calculated from the voltages and current injections
measured. Many PMU manufacturers provide the results of these calculations together with their degree
of accuracy.

63
Chapter 4. Determination of Power Systems Inertia

ωb
Discretizing the systems (4.37) and selecting as state variables δk , ωk , Nk = 2Hk and Dk , we have



 δk+1 = ωs ts + δk + w1k




 h i
 Ek Vk sin(δk −θk )
 ω
 k+1
 = P m − x0 − D k k Nk ts + ωk + w2k
ω
d
(4.39)

Nk+1 = Nk + w3k









Dk+1 = Dk + w4k


where Ek , Vk , θk , x0d and Pm are inputs. Regarding x0d , some approaches like [18] propose to estimate
it together with the other internal parameters of the machine. However, it reports a decrease in accuracy
on the results obtained, that is natural due to the amount of parameters to be estimated based on only
two variables measured. In this research, specific methods to estimate x0d were proposed, such that x0d is
considered known for the application of the studied EKF.
Discretizing (4.38), we have

Ek Vk sin(δk −θk )

 Pe k =
 x0d + v1
(4.40)
 Q = −( Vk2 −Ek Vk cos(δk −θk ) ) + v

ek x0 2
d

The discrete models are then applied to the scheme presented in Figure 4.7.
Results of the presented method can be found in Subsection 5.2.2. The advantage of this method is to
deal with noise in a prediction-correction way. However, the measurement model is able to provide direct
feedback only for a restricted number of variables (i.e., rotor angle and speed), and the other variables
(such as H and D) need to be calibrated indirectly. This makes the method strongly dependent on the
initial guess of H and D, and on the tuning of the matrix Q.

4.2.4 Inertia estimation with model reduction

4.2.4.1 Contextualization

The previous methods were first proposed and tailored to work using measurements acquired at a ter-
minal bus or a boundary bus, in the case of an equivalent area well defined and connected by a single
interconnection. However, PMU placement depends on the multiple functions these devices need to
carry out. One may ask if it is possible to have a dynamic equivalent of the system seen from spread
PMUs available on the grid. In the literature, this topic is not approached in this way. Most of the meth-
ods previously discussed assume full observability of the system to consider they have measurements at
the terminals of every generator or at least at the boundary of coherent areas. However, the question is
whether these pre-defined divisions are still the best configuration to provide insights about the inertia
distribution of a system when intermittent RES units are connected, and moreover, if they are reasonable
from the economic point of view.
The idea here is to propose a method that allows one to take advantage of the available PMUs to
have a fingerprint of the inertia distribution of the system, regardless coherency. In this sense, the areas
or subareas under study may be defined according to the measurements available. Moreover, once gen-
erators are not approached in their terminal buses, an equivalent that also takes into account the inertial

64
 4.2. Estimation methods

behaviour of loads can be built. To do so, it is necessary to reduce the system around the measurement
points available.
System reduction methods were first developed in the literature for speeding up calculations and
simulators [36]. Consequently, some of the criteria to reduce the system may not be reasonable to
assume for practical purposes, as they were tailored for model simulation, but some techniques may be
adopted. The Ward Equivalent method is a generalization of the Thévenin equivalent, widely used with
phasorial representation in steady-state studies, that can be extended to represent part of grid in quasi-
static conditions. Here, the idea is to retain the buses where PMUs are available, eliminating the others.
The dynamic of hidden generators will be represented together in the dynamic equivalent obtained with
the addition of the "Variance method".
The Ward Equivalent Method requires the knowledge of the topology of the system. This topic has
been widely discussed in the literature, in techniques that involve the combination of measurements com-
ing from SCADA and/or PMUs to monitor circuit breakers status, [89], [91], [145]. Once the admittance
matrix of the system is obtained, the Ward Equivalent decomposes it in different sub-matrices according
to the buses to be excluded and retained.

4.2.4.2 Method

Consider a generic power system with PMUs installed in N buses among the total Nt buses of a system,
as depicted in Figure 4.8(a). By means of system reduction, the aim is to obtain the equivalent represented
in Figure 4.8(b).

(a) PMUs installed in N buses (b) Equivalent system

Figure 4.8: Ward Equivalent Method, [67]

The construction of this equivalent starts from the full algebraic equations, which is valid for each
time step i = 1, . . . , M when considering the transient evolving under quasi-static conditions and small
frequency variations. By Ohm’s law,

YBU S VBi = IBi (4.41)

where YBU S is the admittance matrix of the system (without including generator and load admittances),
with dimensions NT × NT . The vectors VBi and IBi are respectively the bus voltages and current
injections vectors at time step i, with dimensions NT × 1.

65
Chapter 4. Determination of Power Systems Inertia

(j)
Regarding a generic bus j, the current injection IBi can be written as:

(j) (j) (j)

IBi = IGi − ILi (4.42)

(j) (j) (j)

where IGi is the generator current of bus j, ILi is the load current and IBi is the injected current in the
grid.
Defining the buses where PMUs are installed as the set of buses to be retained (R = {1, 2, . . . , N }),
the NT − N remaining buses compose the set to be eliminated (E = j 6∈ R). Using the subscripts R
and E to denote retained and eliminated, respectively, Equation (4.41) can be reorganized as:
" #" # " #
YRR YRE VR IR
= (4.43)
YER YEE VE IE

Since all the quantities involved are complex numbers, for the sake of simplicity, they are not repre-
sented in bold anymore. Also, the subscript i is neglected here.
From Equation (4.43),

−1 −1
YER VR + YEE VE = IE ⇒ VE = YEE IE − YEE YER VR (4.44)

Now substituting VE in the upper line of Equation (4.43), it is possible to obtain

−1 −1
(YRR − YRE YEE YER )VR = IR − YRE YEE IE (4.45)

Where quantities of interest are defined as

−1
YEQ = YRR − YRE YEE YER (4.46)

and
−1
IEQ = IR − YRE YEE IE (4.47)
−1
In Equation (4.47), the vector IW = YRE YEE IE takes into account the generators and loads current
injections at eliminated buses, and reduces to the retained buses the global power behaviour of the system.
Alternatively,

IEQ = YEQ VR (4.48)

It is important to observe that IEQ can be calculated through Equation (4.48) considering the voltage
phasors at the retained buses and the reduced admittance matrix YEQ , therefore practical conditions.
However, in systems where all the generators are individually monitored, the total current injection
IEQ can be expressed as

IEQ = IT − IL (4.49)

where IT is the total current injected by the generators and IL is the total load currents. This Equation
is not required in the method for the practical estimation of inertia, but brings additional information that
will be exploited later in this thesis to provide insights on the impact of the loads in the inertia estimation.
It‘s important to point out that Equation 4.49 denotes the equivalent injections after the application of

66
 4.2. Estimation methods

the Ward reduction, differing from the generic bus injections expressed in Equation 4.42 before the
application of the method.
Therefore, given the N -PMU measurements and the admittance matrix YBU S , one can derive the
equivalent matrix YEQ and calculate the equivalent current injections with Equation(4.48), obtaining the
equivalent system depicted in Figure 4.8(b).
After the equivalent system is obtained, with the measured VR and the calculated IEQ , the "Variance
method" presented in Subsection 4.2.2.2 can be applied to obtain the equivalent inertias of each machine.
The procedure can be summarized in the following steps:
Step 1: Build the admittance matrix YBU S of the system. Topology must be known or estimated.
Step 2: Obtain the equivalent matrix YEQ through Equation (4.46) defining the retained and elimi-
nated buses.
Step 3: Calculate IEQ through Equation (4.48) according to the measurements of VR in time.
Step 4: With IEQ and VR , apply the "Variance method" to estimate the transient reactances of each
equivalent machine.
Step 5: Solve the swing equations of the equivalent generators through LS method to estimate the
equivalent inertias. These generators are an equivalent built in terms of the PMU measurements available
at the retained buses. This step is equivalent to the step of the MEM to estimate the inertia for equivalent
machines.
This method was directly used to produce the results presented in Subsections 5.2.3 and partially
used to produce the results seen in Subsections 5.3.3 to 5.5.1. The advantage is to enable the use of more
measurements available in one area to build the dynamic equivalents, instead of considering only one
measurement point when the MEM are applied alone. Consequently, with additional information, the
method is able to provide a more accurate picture of the dynamics of the COI of the area.

4.2.5 Equivalent moving power estimation method (auxiliary)

4.2.5.1 Contextualization

The methods presented in Subsections 4.2.1 and 4.2.2, based on solving the swing equation through LS,
rely on a strong assumption: the consideration that the mechanical power of a machine changes slowly
in comparison to the electrical power generated by the machine. This assumption is reasonable and often
used in the literature for single machines, [41], [42]. However, when dealing with equivalent machines
that represent an entire area, this assumption becomes unreasonable in the case of an internal loss of
generation or in the case which the the perturbation is a change on the mechanical power of one of the
machines.
Pi
The aggregated swing equation (2.23) (defined in Subsection 2.2.3) considers PmEq (t) = j=1 Pmj (t),
and is valid when all the generators are connected to the same bus or when all the power generated is
known. However, one may want to monitor an area installing a PMU at the boundary bus of an area and
exploit the Model Estimation Methods (MEM) presented previously, as depicted in Figure 4.9.
In this case, the equivalent equation of motion of the COI of Area A becomes:

dfCOIA ω0
HCOIA = (PmovA (t) − PeA (t)) , p.u. (4.50)
dt 2
where the subscript A denotes Areas A, PmovA is the equivalent moving power and PeA is the active
power exiting the area.

67
Chapter 4. Determination of Power Systems Inertia

Figure 4.9: Area monitored by a PMU

The equivalent moving power (PmovA ) can be calculated as

ng nl ntl
X X X
PmovA (t) = Pm − PL − Plosses (4.51)
n=1 n=1 n=1

P P
where Pm denotes the sum of the mechanical powers of each of the ng generators, PL denotes the
P
active power consumed by the nl loads and Plosses are the losses in the ntl transmission lines in the
area.
Figure 4.10 depicts the area monitored by the PMU and its correspondent equivalent.

Figure 4.10: Dynamic equivalent of the monitored area

In these conditions, the equivalent moving power PmovA (t) may not move slower in comparison
to PeA , due to perturbations inside the area or due to the voltage and frequency dependance of loads,
that make the variation of power consumed to vary fast and intense, [146]. When using the MEM
directly with dynamic equivalents making the assumption of slow moving power, consequently, this
inconsistence with the model may cause negative estimations for the inertia [147]. Knowing the load
behavior and estimating the moving power of an area therefore improves the assumption of slow moving
power variation to a more realistic approach. The objective of this section is to evaluate the possibility
of performing these estimations in a practical way starting from PMU measurements.

68
 4.2. Estimation methods

4.2.5.2 Specific bibliography review

Many different papers discuss the use of PMUs for monitoring, studying or estimating load behavior
using PMUs. In [148], the voltage dependance of the loads is identified as the main contributor to load
changes, neglecting frequency dependance. In [149] the use of a PMU to monitor and estimate the
behavior of induction motors is addressed, detailing practical limitations. The works [150] and [151]
propose different approaches for dynamic load modelling in distribution grids.
In [152], a practical approach based on modelling the load as constant current is presented. The
methodology assumes the total load pre-disturbance is known, and by weighting voltage measurements
at different buses is able to estimate an equivalent load behavior of an area. The works [153] and [154],
instead, are model-identification based. They make use of optimization for estimating the parameters of
the ZIP model [154] or exponential voltage/frequency dependance model [153].

4.2.5.3 Methodology

As the idea here is to estimate an equivalent moving power as an auxiliary method to the estimation of
inertia, the approach [152] was chosen to address load estimation, as it seemed the most practical and
flexible. The method was adapted to the assumptions considered in this thesis, and combined with a
strategy for estimating the equivalent mechanical power of the area and compose the equivalent moving
power.
The load model proposed in [152] is the constant current, expressed by

l
X VLi (t)
PL (t) = PL0i (4.52)
i=1
VLi (0)

where PL (t) is the total load demand at time t, PL0i and VLi (0) are the initial values of load demand
and voltage at bus i respectively, VLi (t) is the voltage at time t and l is the number of connected loads.
However, these quantities are not always known or directly monitored. Based on 4.52, the total load
demand at time t can be approximated in a more practical way by

PL (t) = Pprod Vset (t) (4.53)

where Pprod is the total load reference, that can be approximated by the average value of the total load in
the time window studied. The variable Vset (t) is a weighted sum of the voltage measurements at selected
buses.
In [152], loads are represented using the constant current and the selected set considers the terminal
buses of the generators, as
n
1 X VGi (t)
Vset (t) = (4.54)
n i=1 VGi (0)

where n is the number of generators and the subscript G stands for the terminal buses of the generators.
Regarding the load representation, if the case is to use the constant impedance model instead of the
constant current, Equation (4.53) may be adapted to
n
1 X VG2i (t)
Vset (t) = (4.55)
n i=1 VG2i (0)

69
Chapter 4. Determination of Power Systems Inertia

Deciding for a specific model or for a composite model depends on the historical load characteristics
of the area under study. If the load parameters in the ZIP model (Equation (2.35)) are known or previously
estimated, Equation (4.53) can be adapted to consider a composite model.
Equations (4.54) and (4.55) are defined as functions of VGi , following the approach proposed in
[152]. However, this implies in the requirement of monitoring the terminal buses of the generators. In that
conditions, the inertia of each machine could be estimated individually and the COI could be evaluated
without the need of estimating the equivalent moving power of the area. Moreover, as it is shown in
the chapter of results (Subsection 5.4.2), considering the terminal buses of generators is not the best
choice to compose Vset and estimate PL (t). For the tested cases, considering measurements obtained
with PMUs at load or transfer buses brought more accuracy to the estimations. Hence, monitoring the
terminals of the generators is not a requirement of this method, and Equation (4.55) can be modified to
Equation (4.56).

ns 2
1 X VBus i
(t)
Vset (t) = 2 (4.56)
n i=1 VBusi
(0)

where VBusi denotes the magnitude of voltages at the ns buses present in the selected set, to be defined
according to the PMUs available.
To estimate an equivalent mechanical power behaviour, the quasi-steady state conditions both before
and after the perturbation may be exploited. In steady state, it is possible to write

PestA = Pmov
st
A
(4.57)

where the superscript st denotes the steady-state.

As PL was already estimated with Equation 4.53 and PeA is measured (as assumed in Figure 4.10),
only Pm and Plosses are left to be estimated in Equation (4.51). Here, Pm and Plosses will be estimated
together, such that for the sake of simplicity the variable
ng ntl
X X
PM L = Pm − Plosses (4.58)
n=1 n=1

is defined.
Hence, substituting Equations (4.57) and (4.58) in Equation 4.51,
nl
X
PeA (t) = PM L − PL (4.59)
n=1

Defining st1 the steady state before the perturbation and st2 the steady-state after the perturbation,
it is possible to rewrite Equation (4.59) in the following forms

nl
X
st1 st1
PM L A = Pe A + PLst1 (4.60)
n=1

nl
X
st2 st2
PM L A = Pe A + PLst2 (4.61)
n=1

st1 st2 st1 st2

such that the quantities PM LA and PM LA can be calculated in terms of the measured PeA and PeA , and

70
 4.2. Estimation methods

Pnl Pnl
the estimated n=1 PLst1 and n=1 PLst2 .
st1 st2
The behaviour of PM LA during the time window between the points PM LA and PM LA can be es-
P
timated according to the droop characteristics of the area. Assuming a slow response of Pm (t) in
relation to PeA (t) (note that is not the same of assuming a slow response of PmovA (t)), it is possible to
project a linear behaviour between the two steady-states and obtain PM LA (t). This can be done in two
different ways.
Png
The first approach assumes that the major change in the equivalent mechanical power ( n=1 Pm (t))
happens only in the few seconds following the perturbation, which can be observed in PeA (t). Therefore,
measuring the time constant ti of the major variation of PeA (t) enables to project PM LA (t) according to
the illustrative Figure 4.11.

Figure 4.11: Projected PM L (t)

The disadvantage of this first approach is that it needs visual inspection or defining a criteria for
determining the time constant ti .
A second possible way to obtain PM LA (t) is related to the droop of the machines present in the area
of study. The droop can be defined as a percentage of speed regulation, i.e., it determines the percentage
of frequency variation according to a percentage of mechanical power variation, according to Figure
4.12.
The expression that models the droop (R) is

∆f
R= (4.62)
∆Pm

where ∆f and ∆Pm are the frequency and the mechanical power variation of the unit under study.
Assuming a value for R, and knowing ∆f , it is possible to estimate ∆Pm in Equation (4.62). Typical
values of R usually range from 2% to 10%.
In the present case, measuring ∆f with PMUs and assuming typical values for R, it is possible to
obtain ∆PM LA . Starting from Equation (4.62),

∆fA fA (t) − fAst1

RA = → RA = st1 (4.63)
∆PM LA PM LA (t) − PM LA

71
Chapter 4. Determination of Power Systems Inertia

Figure 4.12: Ideal steady-state characteristics of a governor with speed droop, [42]

it is possible to rewrite as
st1 st1
RPM LA + fA (t) − fA
PM LA (t) = (4.64)
R
The disadvantage of this second approach is that it requires the knowledge of typical values of R
st1
for the studied area. At second, losses are considered when PM LA was defined, but are neglected dur-
ing the procedure to determine PM LA (t) defined in Equation (4.64). Hence, they need to be taken into
account considering an additional percentage of the total PM LA (t) or otherwise PM LA (t) may be un-
derestimated.
This method can be used as an auxiliary method to the inertia estimation methods proposed previ-
ously in Section 4.2. The results obtained are presented in Section 5.4.2.

4.2.6 Dynamic matrix method

4.2.6.1 Contextualization

This approach is based on the method presented in [35], [155], that combines model/topoology knowl-
edge with PMU measurements in ambient conditions for parameter estimation. In [155], the covariance
matrices related to voltage and currents measured are used to provide information on the proximity to
instability. The work was adapted in [35], where inertia and damping constants are assumed as known to
identify the dynamic state Jacobian matrix, useful for applications like identification of topology change.
Here, the idea is to adapt the method for the aim of this thesis: estimate inertia from PMU measure-
ments under normal load variations. In that case, a perturbation is not needed to identify inertia, but the
method is able to monitor the inertia in normal conditions. For this estimation to be practical, three main
items are required:

• The topology (admittance matrix) of the grid;

• An estimation of a reference load (or mean load);

• The dynamic equivalent seen from each measurement point, i. e., the transient reactances and the
previous inertia estimations for each equivalent generator. This parameters can be obtained with
one of the MEM presented in Section 4.2.2.

72
 4.2. Estimation methods

With the requirements fulfilled, it is possible to estimate the inertia continuously following normal
load variations. If, due to a perturbation, the parameters of the area or the unit represented by the dynamic
equivalent changes, the MEM needs to be executed again.

4.2.6.2 Methodology

The method is modelled in terms of the internal nodes of each generator. To do so, the admittance matrix
of the system needs to be modified to include loads and transient reactances in a first moment, and then
is reduced around the internal nodes. This procedure is shown in Appendix C.
The motion equation of the i − th synchronous generator presented in (2.15) can be expressed as a
second-order system of equations,

δ˙i = ωi p.u
(4.65)
Mi ω̇i = Pm i − Pe i − D i ω i p.u.


2Hi
where the subscript i denotes each of the n generators of the system, Mi = ω0 and the other variables
were previously defined in Section 2.2. The electrical power Pei here is obtained with

n
X
Pe i = [Ei Ej (Gij cos(δi − δj ) + Bij sin(δi − δj ))] p.u. (4.66)
j=1

where E and δ are the magnitude and phase angle of the internal voltage of each machine, and Gij and
Bij are the conductance and susceptance terms of the reduced admittance matrix that connects each of
the machines.
The System (4.65) is represented considering an infinite bus as a static reference for angle and speed
of the generators. The same equations can be represented in the COI frame, assuming the angle of the
COI as a rotating reference for the generators [156]. This procedure is shown in Appendix C. This model
has been traditionally used for direct stability determination, among other models, because it deals with
path-dependent terms in a easier way [46].
The COI angle and the COI frequency were already defined in Section 2.2.3. Here, they are repeated
for convenience, but expressed in terms of M (instead of H) and considering that all the generators have
the same nominal power (for simplicity of the following deductions). Hence,
Pn
Sni Mi δi
δCOI , Pi=1
i
rad (4.67)
i=1 Sni Mi
Pn
Sni Mi ωi
ωCOI , Pi=1
i
rad/s (4.68)
i=1 Sni Mi

All the rotor angles and speed of the system can be expressed by δ̃i = δi −δCOI and ω̃i = ωi −ωCOI .
The system of equations becomes

δ̃˙i

= ω̃i p.u
(4.69)
Mi ω̃˙ i = Pmi − Pei − Di ω̃i − Mi
PCOI p.u.

MT

73
Chapter 4. Determination of Power Systems Inertia

Pn
where MT = i Mi is the sum of all inertias and the term PCOI can be defined as

n
X
PCOI = [Pmi − Pei ] p.u. (4.70)
i=1

and represents the power imbalance at the COI, a function of all n generators.
The motion of the nth generator can be determined as a function of the others through Equations
(4.67) and (4.68), as presented in Appendix C. The final expressions are:

Pn−1
Mk δ̃k
k=1
δ̃n = − rad (4.71)
Mn

Pn−1
k=1 Mk ω̃k
ω̃n = − rad/s (4.72)
Mn

Expressions (4.71) and (4.72) can be substituted in the System (4.69) to reduce the order of the
system, that becomes

δ̃˙k

= ω̃k p.u.
(4.73)
Mk ω̃˙ k = Pmk − Pek − Dk ω̃k − Mk
PCOI p.u.

MT

where k = 1...n − 1 is the new index. Note that Pek is a function of δ̃n , and consequently PCOI is also.
Hence, when calculating Pek , the variable δ̃n must be substituted by Equation (4.71).
Considering the constant impedance model for loads, and assuming a Gaussian variation around a
base case loading, the load variation can be represented in the diagonal elements of the reduced admit-
tance matrix
Yiinew = Yii (1 + σi ξi )∠φii p.u. (4.74)

where σi is the standard deviation of load variation and ξi is a independent standard Gaussian variable,
that comes from the representation of the stochastic variation as a Wiener Process [35], [157]. As it can
be seen, the variation affects only the magnitude of Y (i, i), while the phase angle remains unchanged.
Applying Equation (4.74) in (4.66), the power consumed by the load connect to the node i due to the
load variation is
Pei = Ei2 Gii σi ξi p.u. (4.75)

an expression that does not depend on the variables at the other buses. Hence, it is possible to include
the effect of (4.75) separately in the system (4.73) without the need of modifying the expression of Pek ,
that accounts the power consumed by the base loads. This makes the following mathematical deductions
easier.
Considering Equation (4.75) into system (4.73), the model becomes

δ̃˙k

= ω̃k
(4.76)
Mk ω̃˙ k = Pmk − Pek − Dk ω̃k − Ek2 Gkk σk ξk − Mk Mk
PCOI + − M PLCOI

MT T

Pn
where PLCOI = i Ei2 Gii σi ξi , and all the other variables has been previously defined.

74
 4.2. Estimation methods

The system (4.76) can be linearized around a stable steady state point and represented as
" # " #" # " #
δ̃ 0 I δ̃ 0
= + ξ (4.77)
ω̃ J K ω̃ −M−1 E2 GΣ

where δ̃ = [δ̃1 , ..., δ̃n−1 ]T , ω̃ = [ω̃1 , ..., ω̃n−1 ]T , M = diag([M1 , ..., Mn−1 ]), E = diag([E1 , ..., En−1 ]),
G = diag([G11 , ..., G(n−1,n−1) ]), Σ = diag([σ1 , ..., σn−1 ]), and ξ = [ξ1 , ...ξn−1 ]T .
The matrices 0 and I are (n − 1) × (n − 1) null and identity matrices, respectively.
The matrix J can be obtained by

∂Pe
J = −M−1 ( )COI (4.78)
∂ δ̃
where
∂Pe ∂Pe 1 ∂PCOI
( )COI = ( +M ) (4.79)
∂ δ̃ ∂ δ̃ M T ∂ δ̃
∂Pe ∂PCOI
and the derivatives ∂ δ̃
and ∂ δ̃
can be found in Appendix C.
The matrix K can be obtained by

D1 Dn−1
K = diag([− , ..., − ]) (4.80)
M1 Mn−1

Coming back to System (4.77), the same equations can be represented in a standard simplified form
as
ẋ = Ax + Bξ (4.81)

where x = [δ, ω]T , A = [ J0 I

K ] and B = [0, −M−1 E2 GΣ]T .
If the system is stable, an important property can be exploited, based on the stationary covariance
C Cδ̃ω̃
matrix Cxx = [ C δ̃δ̃ Cω̃ω̃ ]. This matrix is normally unknown in practice, but approximations can be
ω̃ δ̃
obtained as it will be discussed later in this section. As the method here described is proposed to identify
inertia following small load variations under normal operation, stability can be assumed, such that in that
conditions the matrix Cxx satisfies the so-called Lyapunov Equation [158],

ACxx + Cxx AT = −BBT (4.82)

Combining equations (4.77) and (4.82),

" #" # " #" # " #
0 I Cδ̃δ̃ Cδ̃ω̃ Cδ̃δ̃ Cδ̃ω̃ 0 JT 0 h i
+ + 0 −M−1 E2 GΣ = 0
J K Cω̃δ̃ Cω̃ω̃ Cω̃δ̃ Cω̃ω̃ I KT −M−1 E2 GΣ
(4.83)
From Equation (4.83), its possible to write:

Cδ̃ω̃ + Cω̃ δ̃ = 0 (4.84)

JCδ̃δ̃ + KCω̃δ̃ + Cω̃ω̃ = 0 (4.85)

75
Chapter 4. Determination of Power Systems Inertia

JCδ̃ω̃ + KCω̃ω̃ + Cω̃δ̃ JT + Cω̃ω̃ KT + Ψ = 0 (4.86)

where Ψ = [−M−1 E2 GΣ][−M−1 E2 GΣ]T .

The term KCω̃δ̃ in Equation (4.85) is typically negligible. This assumption was made in [35] and ver-
ified in the tests with the method. Hence, substituting Equation (4.78) in Equation (4.85) and neglecting
KCω̃δ̃ [35], it’s possible to obtain

∂Pe
M=( )COI Cδ̃δ̃ C−1
ω̃ ω̃ [s2 ] (4.87)
∂ δ̃
The matrix ( ∂P e
)
∂ δ̃ COI
can be obtained from the Equations described in the Appendix C, as function
of the known topology and outputs of a previous execution of a MEM.
The covariance matrix Cδ̃δ̃ can be defined as
 
Cδ̃1 δ̃1 Cδ̃1 δ̃1 ··· Cδ̃1 δ̃n
 
 C
 δ̃2 δ̃1 Cδ̃2 δ̃2 ··· Cδ̃2 δ̃n 

Cδ̃δ̃ =
 .. .. .. ..

 (4.88)
 . . . . 
 
Cδ̃n−1 δ̃1 Cδ̃n−1 δ̃2 ··· Cδ̃n−1 δ̃n−1

The matrix Cω̃ω̃ can be defined in a similar way.

The individual terms of (4.88) can be obtained from

Cδ̃i δ̃j = E[(δ̃i − µi )(δ̃j − µj )] (4.89)

where µi is the mean of δ̃i .

For the practical proposed application, it is unfeasible to use Equation (4.89) because of limited data.
Hence, an approximation must be done considering the window of data available. In this conditions, the
sample covariance matrices Qδ̃δ̃ and Qω̃ω̃ can be calculated by

N
1 X
Qδ̃k δ̃j = (δ̃rk − δ̃k )(δ̃rj − δ̃j ) (4.90)
N − 1 r=1

N
1 X
Qω̃k ω̃j = (ω̃rk − ω̃k )(ω̃rj − ω̃j ) (4.91)
N − 1 r=1

where the overline denotes the sample mean of the referred quantity and N is the number of samples.
Hence, M can be estimated from Equation (4.87) in relation to the sample interval selected to calcu-
late Qxx , for generators k = 1...n − 1. The constant M can be estimated in time considering a sliding
window of selected samples.
The constant M of the n − th generator can be calculated in terms of the M constants of the n − 1
generators previously calculated and the samples of δ̃, solving Equation (4.71) through Least-Squares,
as follows:
n−1
X
Mn = (δ̃nTr δ̃nr )−1 δ̃nTr (− Mk δ̃kr ) [s2 ] (4.92)
k=1

where r = 1...N and N is the number of samples considered.

76
 4.3. Summary of the methods

This method was used to produce part of the results presented in Section 5.5.2. The advantage is
the possibility of identifying inertia under normal load variations without the necessity of estimating the
load behaviour. The disadvantage is the high number of requirements.

4.3 Summary of the methods

This subsection present a summary of all the methods presented, enumerating the general assumptions
taken, the main requirements in terms of variables and measurement points, and the procedure necessary
to estimate the inertia in each method. Advantages and disadvantages are presented in Section 5 of
numerical results, together with specific assumptions taken in each test.

General assumptions:

• The active and reactive power exiting bus i through the interconnection line on time t can be
calculated from the measured variables Vi (t) and Ii (t).

• The moving power in comparison to the electromagnetic power generated by synchronous ma-
chines has a slow behavior, such that ∆Pi (t) ≈ Pist − Pi (t), where Pist is the steady state value of
the active power Pi before the perturbation. An alternative is to use the auxiliary method presented
in Subsection 4.2.5.

Specific characteristics of the Least Squares Method for inertia estimation:

• Further assumptions:
- The difference between the angle of the internal voltage and the measured voltage angle is
negligible (δi (t) ≈ θi (t)).

• Requirements to estimate Hi :
- One measurement point, at the terminal of each synchronous machine;
- Vi ∠θi , Ii ∠αi ;

• Procedure:
- Solve directly the Swing Equation filled with the measured data through Least Squares
method.

Specific characteristics of the Iterative-IME method:

• Assumptions:
- The variation ∆Vi (t) of the measured voltage Vi (t) with respect to a change in ∆δ can be
linearized about an equilibrium point 0;
- The measurement points are in the same radial path;

• Requirements to estimate Hi :
- Two measurement points in a radial path;
- Vi ∠θi ,Ii ∠αi with i = 1, 2;

77
Chapter 4. Determination of Power Systems Inertia

• Procedure:

- Obtain the internal parameters of the equivalent machine i, i.e., the transient reactance and
the internal voltage angle to build a dynamic equivalent;

- Estimate the inertia solving the swing equation related to the equivalent machine through
the Least Squares method.

Specific characteristics of the "Variance" method:

• Assumptions:

- The expressions are stated fitting E ≈ constant and V ar(E 2 ) ≈ 0.

• Requirements to estimate Hi :

- One measurement point;

- Vi ∠θi , Ii ∠αi ;

• Procedure:

- Obtain the internal parameters of the equivalent machine i, i.e., the transient reactance and
the internal voltage angle to build a dynamic equivalent;

- Estimate the inertia solving the swing equation related to the equivalent machine through
the Least Squares method.

Specific characteristics of EKF method:

• Assumptions:

- The dynamic of the studied system can be represented by the classical second-order differ-
ential equations for synchronous machines;

• Requirements to estimate Hi :

- One measurement point, at the terminal of the synchronous machine;

- Pi , Qi ;

• Procedure:

- Prediction-Correction method that compares estimations produced with a chosen process

model and measurements acquired from the grid.

Specific characteristics of the inertia estimation with system reduction method:

• Assumptions:

- The static elements (lines and transformers) of the reduced portion of the grid are considered
in steady state during the period of analysis;

78
 4.3. Summary of the methods

• Requirements to estimate Hi :
- Knowledge of the network topology (Y matrix);
- Two or more measurement points*;
- Vi ∠θi , Ii ∠αi ;

• Procedure:
- Reduce the system around the measurement points using the Ward equivalent method;
- Obtain the internal parameters of the equivalent machine i through the "Variance" method;
- Estimate the inertia solving the swing equation related to the equivalent machine through
the Least Squares method.

*Obs.: Depending on the boundaries of the area to be represented. If there is only one boundary
bus, only one measurement point is necessary to estimate the equivalent inertia of this area, due to the
use of the "Variance method", whose related assumptions and requirements are still valid. However,
the proposed method for system reduction is useful to study areas with more than one boundaries and
or areas with PMUs inside, from which additional information can be achieved to improve the inertia
estimations.

Specific characteristics of the dynamic matrix method:

• Assumptions:
- The system is stable and under normal load variations;
- The system can be linearized around an equilibrium point and represented as with the state-
space model.

• Requirements to estimate Hi :
- Knowledge of the network topology;
- An estimation of a reference load (or mean load);
- The outputs of a previously performed MEM, i.e., the transient reactance and the previous
inertia estimated for the equivalent generator.
- One measurement point;
- Vi ∠θi , Ii ∠αi ;

• Procedure:
- Reduce the system around the measurement points using the Ward equivalent method;
- Obtain the internal parameters of the equivalent machine i through the "Variance" method;
- Calculate the Jacobian of the system, including the previous load reference point and the
inertia previously estimated;
- Calculate the covariance matrices of the estimated rotor angle and speed;
- Estimate the inertia through Equation (4.87).

79
Chapter 4. Determination of Power Systems Inertia

4.4 Conclusion of the Chapter

In this chapter the possibilities of estimating inertia in power systems using synchrophasor measurements
were discussed. A literature review was presented, divided in the main types of approaches found. The
methodology proposed in this thesis was explained, together with the methods studied and proposed.

80
 CHAPTER 5
Numerical results

T
his Chapter presents the numerical results obtained with the application of the methods proposed
in Chapter 4. The Chapter is divided in different sections, each one containing a different study
conduced according to the guiding specific objectives enumerated in Section 1.2 and the Topics
defined in Chapter 4, here recalled in a short summary:

• Topic 1: Inertia estimation considering a PMU installed in the terminals of the generator;

• Topic 2: Inertia estimation considering a PMU installed at the boundary of an area;

• Topic 3: Inertia estimation considering spread PMUs;

• Topic 4: Inertia estimation following normal load variations in normal operating conditions.

To investigate the Topics, every study was performed according to the following procedure:

1. Simulate the response of the test system according to a perturbation or normal load variations;

2. Assume the presence of PMUs installed in specific points of the grid, according to the study;

3. Save the simulated data related to the PMUs considered;

4. Process the data and apply the methods described in Chapter 4;

5. Analyze the results.

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Chapter 5. Numerical results

The organization of this chapter is as follows:

In Section 5.1, preliminary studies are presented evaluating base cases for identifying the main chal-
lenges on inertia estimation. Topic 1 is investigated, with the aim of estimating inertia considering PMUs
installed at terminal buses of generators.
In Section 5.2, the idea was to estimate inertia considering PMUs installed at boundary buses of a
portion of the grid, the purpose of Topics 2 and 3. In addition, the section also brings further observations
regarding Topic 1 too.
In Section 5.3, results are presented considering the integration of RES-based generation. Inertia
estimation was performed from the point of view of Topics 1 to 3.
In Section 5.4, complementary studies are presented. In the first study of this section, a probe is con-
sidered to generate a measurable signal to estimate inertia. In the second, the moving power estimation
method proposed in Section 4.2.5.3 is tested.
In Section 5.5, normal load variations are studied, as proposed in Topic 4. Two different approaches
are considered and comparisons are carried.
The Section 5.6 presents the final conclusions of the Chapter, summarizing the results obtained and
making comparisons between the methods.

5.1 Preliminary studies

The aim of Topic 1 is to evaluate inertia of a generator considering a PMU installed at its terminals, and
for this purpose the methods presented in Sections 4.2.1 and 4.2.2 were tested with simulated data in
these preliminary studies.
In Subsection 5.1.1, Study 1 presents the application of the direct Least-Squares method for estimat-
ing the inertia of a radial system. In Subsection 5.1.2, Study 2 propose the IME method to improve the
accuracy of the results obtained in Study 1. In Subsection 5.1.3, Study 3 presents a comparison between
the MEM studied, evaluated with two different perturbations.

5.1.1 Study 1 - Least-squares direct method

This subsection introduces the first study approaching Topic 1. The Least-Squares direct method, pre-
sented in Section 4.2.1, is tested for estimating inertia of a generator from measurements acquired by
PMUs installed at its terminals.
For this study, a simulation was performed in Matlab, with the following details:

• Test-system used: Test-system A presented in Section D.1, chosen due to its simplicity.

• Simulation software: Euler numerical integration method as proposed in [41], implemented in

Matlab.

• Perturbation simulated: disconnection of Generator 1 at t=0s and reconnection at t=0.2s;

• Model used for the synch. machines: Second order model (as presented in Subsection 2.2.1);

• Machine parameters: according to Table 5.1;

• Model of the loads: constant impedance;

• Losses: neglected;

82
 5.1. Preliminary studies

• The sampling time used is 10ms. The total simulation lasts 10s.

The values of inertia (H), damping (D) and transient reactance (x0d ) for both generators used in the
simulations can be seen in Table 5.1. The values are merely theoretical and do not reproduce real cases.

Table 5.1: Study 1 - Machine parameters

H[s] D xi [p.u.]
G1 30 10 0.054
G2 300 50 0.054

During the simulations, the following variables coming from the generators were recorded: internal
voltage phasors (Ei ∠δi ), generated power (Pi ) and mechanical power (Pmi ) where i = 1, 2. These
variables are not measurable by PMUs, but here they were recorded for testing the preliminary tests with
the studied method. From the interconnection line, assuming PMUs installed at buses 1 and 2, the voltage
phasors (V1 ∠θ1 and V2 ∠θ2 ) at the buses and the power flows (P12 and P21 ) were recorded. Figure 5.1
depicts the recorded variables.

Figure 5.1: Study 1 - Simulated system and recorded variables

The results of the simulation are presented in Figure 5.2. As it can be seen in Figure 5.2(a), the
speed ω1 increases after G1 is disconnected, while ω2 decreases. When G1 is reconnected to the grid, at
t=0.2 s, the situation changes and ω1 rapidly decreases, meanwhile ω2 rapidly increases. This happens
because G2 act as a generator to feed the load while G1 was disconnected. When G1 is reconnected, G2
starts to perform as a motor to counteract the power generated by an accelerated G1, until they reach a
steady-state and only G1 feeds the load (that is installed at bus 1).

5.1.1.1 Results of Study 1

A first test was performed applying the Least-Squares method described in Subsection 4.2.1 with the data
coming from the generators, i.e., applying δi , Pi and Pmi directly in Equation (4.1). This test is identified
as "Study 1 - Test 1". In this conditions, Hi and Di were estimated with less than 1% of error, which
validates the method in the situation considered. However, this test does not take into consideration
practical conditions, as rotor angles δ are not directly measurable by PMUs.

83
Chapter 5. Numerical results

(a) Speed behaviour (b) Power generated

Figure 5.2: Study 1 - Simulations

In a second test, still non-practical, the recorded data of the power flow from bus 1 to bus 2 were
considered as the generated power of Generator 1 (P1 ≈ P12 ), and the same was considered in the
reverse direction P2 ≈ P21 . The rotor angles δi were used to complete the set of required data to apply
the method. In these conditions, the results presented in Table 5.2 were estimated. This test is identified
as "Study 1 - Test 2".

Table 5.2: Study 1 - Test 2

Simulated Estimated
H [s] D H [s] D
G1 30 10 11.9438 3.0883
G2 300 50 300.0000 50.0000

It can be seen that the estimations for Generator 1 are not accurate. In comparison to the Test 1, it
is noticeable that the load interfered. The assumption P1 = P12 didn’t consider the presence of the load
at bus 1, such that it doesn’t reflect the true generated power by the studied machine. Meanwhile, the
estimations for Generator 2 presented an error of less then 1%.
To follow the direction of a practical approach, a third test is performed taking out one the non-
practical assumption of monitoring rotor angles. Hence, the phase angles of the terminal voltages at
buses 1 and 2 (θ1 and θ2 ) were used as an approximated measure of the internal voltage angles (δ1 and
δ2 ) in the (4.1). The assumption of Pi = Pij is still kept for this test. The results are presented in Table
5.3, and this test is identified as "Study 1 - Test 3".

Table 5.3: Study 1 - Test 3

Simulated Estimated
H [s] D H [s] D
G1 30 10 -3.5620 -0.0198
G1 300 50 9.6978 0.0460

84
 5.1. Preliminary studies

As it can be seen, the results are very far from the true values. Regarding Generator 1, the assump-
tions lead to negative estimations. Comparing to Generator 2, the only difference between the assump-
tions about the topology of both sides is the presence of the load at bus 1. The voltage dependence of the
load affects the assumption P1 (t) = P12 (t) leading to different signal in relation to the change in θi (t);
this implies negative estimations for inertia and damping. This issue is further explored in Studies 4, 6
and 11, in Subsections 5.2.1, 5.2.3 and 5.4.2, respectively.
Regarding Generator 2, the approximation δ1 ≈ θ1 also led to high errors. Hence, the assumption
that the difference between the angle of the internal voltage and the angle of the measured voltage at
the terminal bus is negligible (stated in Section 4.2.1) does not hold. The difference between δi and
θi comes from the fact that the transient reactance of each machine is not taken into account, and it is
clearly interfering in the results, showing the need of estimating it.

5.1.1.2 Conclusions of Study 1

This section presented preliminary tests where the Least Squares method was applied to solve the swing
equation to estimate inertia and damping of synchronous machines.
The method was only accurate when data from the rotor angle or internal voltage angle were used.
When data coming from the terminal buses were used, the method failed to estimate the constants of
interest with acceptable accuracy.
The main reason identified was the approximation that considered the difference between rotor angles
and the phase angles at terminal buses as negligible, which does not hold, due to the effect of transient
reactances. Hence, it was identified the necessity of studying methods to build dynamic equivalents,
mainly estimating the transient reactance of the studied generator. Moreover, the voltage dependence of
the load was also identified as an issue. The following studies approach these problems.

5.1.2 Study 2 - IME method

This subsection presents a second study involved with Topic 1, approaching one of the issues identified in
the previous section. For this study, the Test-system B presented in Subsection D.2 is used. The system
is similar to Test-system A, with the difference that the load at bus 1 was excluded and now a generator
feeds a motor. These modifications were done to approach the issue identified in Study 1 regarding the
negligence of the effect of the transient reactances, without the interference of the load behaviour as
seen in the same study. The impact of the load, instead, is further investigated in Studies 4, 6 and 11, in
Subsections 5.2.1, 5.2.3 and 5.4.2, respectively.
The details of the simulations for this study are:

• Test-system used: Test-system B presented in Section D.2.

• Simulation software: Euler numerical integration method as proposed in [41], implemented in

Matlab.

• Perturbation simulated: disconnection of Generator 1 at t=0s and reconnection at t=0.2s;

• Model used for the synch. machines: Second order model with damping (as presented in Subsec-
tion 2.2.1);

• Machine parameters: according to the case;

85
Chapter 5. Numerical results

• Model of the load: dynamic (motor);

• Losses: neglected;

• Sampling time: 10ms. The total simulation last 10s.

Two different tests were simulated. The first one, identified as "Study 2 - Test 1", considered the
parameters presented in Table 5.1, as in Study 1. A second test ("Study 2 - Test 2") considered the
parameters presented in Table 5.4, a variation produced to test the IME method.

Table 5.4: Study 2 - Test 2 - Machine parameters

H[s] D xi [p.u.]
G1 50 20 0.07
G2 500 60 0.07

The dynamic response of the synchronous machines can be seen in Figure 5.3.

(a) Test 1 (b) Test 2

Figure 5.3: Study 2 - Simulations

5.1.2.1 Results of Study 2

Only variables at the terminal buses were considered as measured, giving a practical characteristic for
the present study. According to Figure 5.1, the variables recorded were: V1 ∠θ1 , V2 ∠θ2 , I12 ∠α12 .
The method presented on Subsection 4.2.2.1 was tested skipping the steps 8 and 9 of the algorithm,
as the system is lossless. Due to this reason, this method is identified as "IME" in this Study, leaving the
"Iterative" prefix term.
The results are presented in Table 5.5.
It can be seen that the results are very accurate for both cases. The Least Squares method, used in
the Step 10 of the algorithm, proves to be accurate when applied to the swing equation supplied with the
data of the internal voltage angles calculated with the IME-iterative method proposed.
Different tests were performed varying the values of the parameters presented in Table 5.1 and also
the number of samples considered. The maximum error obtained was of e = 5.83% for the estimation
of the transient reactances and less than 2% for both inertia and damping.

86
 5.1. Preliminary studies

Table 5.5: Study 2 - Results

Test 1
Simulated Estimated
H[s] D x H[s] D x
G1 30 10 0.054 30.0023 10.0005 0.0539
G2 300 50 0.054 299.9772 50.0036 0.0539
Test 2
Simulated Estimated
H[s] D x H[s] D x
G1 50 20 0.07 49.9541 19.9770 0.0699
G2 500 60 0.07 497.8747 59.7885 0.0701

5.1.2.2 Conclusions of Study 2

The IME method proposed by [17] for oscillations was adapted and applied to estimate the inertia fol-
lowing perturbations. Data coming from the terminal buses were considered and applied to estimate
the internal parameters of the synchronous machines in study, and the method produced accurate re-
sults in terms of transient reactance, inertia and damping estimated. The method solves the limitation
of the methodology applied in Study 1, where the application of the Least Squares method on the swing
equation fed with data from terminal buses did not produce good results.

5.1.3 Study 3 - Model Estimation Methods

In this subsection, the Iterative-IME and the "Variance" method are tested and compared considering
different data simulated.

5.1.3.1 Study 3 - Test 1

In this first test, simulations are performed with Test-System B in the same conditions of Study 5.1.2,
but now losses are considered in the transmission line. Summarizing:

• Test-system used: Test-system B presented in Section D.2, chosen due to its simplicity.

• Simulation software: Euler numerical integration method as proposed in [41], implemented in

Matlab.

• Perturbation simulated: disconnection of Generator 1 at t=0s and reconnection at t=0.2s;

• Model used for the synch. machines: Second order model (as presented in Subsection 2.2.1);

• Machine parameters: according to Table 5.6.

• Model of the load: dynamic (motor);

X
• Losses: considered. The relation R depended on the test;

• Sampling time: 10ms. The total simulation last 10s.

87
Chapter 5. Numerical results

Table 5.6: Study 3 - Test 1 - Machine parameters

H[s] D xi [p.u.]
G1 50 20 0.054
G2 500 60 0.054

X
The simulations are performed considering different R relations for the transmission line. Only
variables at the terminal buses were considered as measured, remaking the practical conditions of Study
2. The inclusion of a resistance in the transmission line didn’t produce a big impact on the dynamic
response of the machines involved; this is why no Figures presenting the responses are depicted for this
case. However, the impedance of the radial path interferes on the transient reactance estimation and
consequently on the inertia estimation of the machines, justifying this study.
The acquired data is used to produce a dynamic equivalent of each generator, according to Figure
5.4. To build each equivalent, the first step is to estimate the transient reactances x1 and x2 . Then, the
internal voltages can be calculated accordingly and the inertia can be estimated through the solution of
the swing equation.

Figure 5.4: Study 3 - Test 1 - Dynamic equivalents

To evaluate the effect of the considered impedance on the estimations, three methods were tested:
the IME method without the iterative loop, as used in Study 2, the Iterative-IME method as presented
in Section 4.2.2.1, with tolerance of 10−6 , and the "Variance" method, as presented in Section 4.2.2.2.
X
Results obtained with two different R relations are presented in Table 5.7.

Table 5.7: Study 3 - Test 1 - Transient reactances

Simulated IME It.-IME "Variance method"

x1 x2 x1 x2 x1 x2 x1 x2
X
R =5 0.054 0.054 0.0512 0.0518 0.0520 0.0529 0.054 0.054
X
R = 10 0.054 0.054 0.0507 0.0506 0.0518 0.0528 0.054 0.054

It can be seen in Table 5.7 that the Iterative loop brought improvements to the estimation of xi in
X
comparison to the simple IME method, specially when the the relation R is higher. However, for the
evaluated tests, the "Variance" method was the one that performed better.

88
 5.1. Preliminary studies

X
Taking the case in which R = 10, the estimations of inertia and damping can be seen in Table 5.8,
where the errors obtained in the estimation of xi were reflected also in the estimation of Hi and Di .

Table 5.8: Study 3 - Test 1 - Inertia and damping ( X

R = 10)

Simulated IME It.-IME "Variance method"

G1 G2 G1 G2 G1 G2 G1 G2
H(s) 50 500 51.4423 493.5332 50.0447 499.8092 50.0000 500.0000
D 20 60 20.2365 62.2773 20.0026 60.0034 20.0000 60.0000

5.1.3.2 Study 3 - Test 2

For this test, a different type of perturbation is simulated in Test-System B: G2, acting as a motor, is
set to consume 10% more power in t=0.2s. A governor and an AVR are implemented for Generator 1,
according to [42].

• Test-system used: Test-system B presented in Subsection D.1, chosen due to its simplicity.

• Simulation method: Euler numerical integration method as proposed in [41], implemented in Mat-
lab.

• Perturbation simulated: step increase of 10% in the mechanical power of G2 at t=0.2s;

• Model used for the synch. machines: Second order model (as presented in Subsection 2.2.1);

• Model of the loads: dynamic (G2 acts a motor).

X
• Losses considered with R = 10.

• The sampling time used is 10ms. The total simulation last 25s.

• According to Table 5.6.

The dynamic behaviour of G1 and G2 are presented in Figure 5.5 and 5.6. In Figure 5.5, the me-
chanical power (Pmi ) and the power generated (Pi ) of G1 and G2 are presented. It can be seen that Pm1
follows the step imposed in Pm2 thanks to the action of the governor. In Figure 5.6, the speed of the
machines are presented.
With the Iterative-IME method, the transient reactances estimated were x1 = x2 = 0.0558, while
with the "Variance" method x1 = x2 = 0.054. Table 5.9 present the inertia and damping estimated.
It can be seen that the Iterative-IME performed better for Generator 1 then Generator 2 in this case.
However, once again, the "Variance" method performed better.

5.1.3.3 Conclusions of study 3

This section expanded Study 2 to consider losses on the transmission lines and also to include tests
with another type of perturbation. The Iterative-IME method presented in Subsection 4.2.2.1 and the
"Variance method" presented in Subsection 4.2.2.2 were tested, with accurate results, with the "Variance
method" in advantage in the cases evaluated in this study. The differences between the methods are
further investigated in Subsection 5.2.1, where results obtained with a more complex test-system are
analyzed.

89
Chapter 5. Numerical results

(a) Powers of G1 (b) Powers of G2

Figure 5.5: Study 3 - Test 2 - powers simulated

Figure 5.6: Study 3 - Test 2 - speeds simulated

Table 5.9: Study 3 - Test 2 - Inertia and damping estimated

Simulated It.-IME "Variance method"

G1 G2 G1 G2 G1 G2
H(s) 50 500 49.8183 493.4876 50.1355 501.0247
D 20 60 19.8974 51.2776 19.9354 59.3604

5.2 Area equivalent studies

In this section, more complex test-systems are used to evaluate dynamic equivalents and inertia estima-
tion from terminal buses, boundary buses and spread units installed on the grid.
Subsection 5.2.1 presents Study 4, presenting area studies considering non-coherent generators and
debating the effect of loads and perturbation inside the area of study.

90
 5.2. Area equivalent studies

Subsection 5.2.2 presents Study 5, an evaluation of the EKF method in comparison to the MEM.
Besides most of the results present in this subsection are related to single machines, the discussion of the
results is pertinent to area studies.
Subsection 5.2.3 presents Study 6, where the results obtained with the method described in Section
4.2.4 are shown.

5.2.1 Study 4 - MEM

In this subsection, the Iterative-IME and the "Variance" method are evaluated for building dynamic
equivalents and estimating inertia of an area, approaching the proposed Topic 2.
With the aim of studying the applicability of the methods with more complex systems, simulations
were performed in PowerFactory2018 with the original test-system from [42], widely used in academy.
The details of this test-system is presented in Section D.3, but the diagram is reproduced here for conve-
nience.

Figure 5.7: Study 4 - Test-system C

With this test-system it is possible to test the MEM considering a higher-order model for the syn-
chronous machines in the simulation in relation to the second order model used to build the dynamic
equivalents, and evaluate the possible limitations of this representation. Moreover, Governor, PSS and
AVRs were modelled and considered in the simulations, what may also interfere in the performance of
the studied methods.

• Test-system used: Test-system C, presented in Section D.3;

• Simulation software: PowerFactory2018;

• Perturbations simulated: load steps;

• Model used for the synch. machines: two-axis IEEE standard detailed Model 2.2 [45];

• Machine parameters: according to Table D.2.

• Model of the loads: constant impedance;

• Losses: considered;

• Controllers: Governor, PSS and AVRs modelled using standards models and parameters available
in PowerFactory2018;

• Sampling time: 20ms.

91
Chapter 5. Numerical results

For the purpose of this study, the chosen test-system is divided in two areas. Traditionally, areas
are divided in power system studies according to coherent group of machines, such that their dynamic
behaviour can be studied altogether. However, in this study the areas are divided accordingly to the
assumed presence of a PMU at boundary buses. This choice is motivated by the fact that PMUs are
installed in the grid according to many factors [94], [97], [98], such as observability, or other applications,
as protection. Consequently, available PMUs may monitor groups of generators that are not necessarily
coherent, and this study aims at investigating the implications of that.
The study considers PMUs installed at the boundary buses 5 and 6, such that Area 1 is defined
by the boundary bus 5, and contain only one generating machine (G1 ), and Area 2 is defined by the
boundary bus 6, composed by three non-coherent generating units (G2 , G3 , G4 ). The data acquired from
the simulator are highlighted in Figure 5.8, that is a snipping of Figure 5.7. The voltage at bus 5 is
represented as V5 ∠θ5 and the current injection exiting Area 1 is I56 ∠φ56 . Similar for the other area,
V6 ∠θ6 is the voltage at bus 6 and and I65 ∠φ65 is the current injection exiting Area 2. The Iterative-IME
method and the "Variance method" were then applied to estimate the parameters of the equivalent system
depicted in Figure 5.9 in two different cases considering a perturbation in each one of the areas.

Figure 5.8: Study 4 - Snipping of Test-system C Figure 5.9: Study 4 - Dynamic equivalent

5.2.1.1 Test 1 - Perturbation inside Area 2

Test 1 is based on a simulated step increase of 20% in the load of bus 9 (see Figure 5.7). In this case,
G1 and G2 oscillates against G3 and G4. However, considering bus 6 as the boundary of Area 2, the
dynamic behaviour of this area is dominated by G3 and G4. Figure 5.10 shows the frequency behavior
of the COI of Area 1 (composed only by G1) and the behaviour of Area 2 (Composed by G2, G3 and
G4). The area division allows the MEM to be tested for estimating the parameters of a single machine
(in case of Area 1) and estimating the parameters of an equivalent of non-coherent machines (Area 2).
The Iterative-IME method was tested with a selected time window of 2s around the moment the
perturbation occurred, considering 0.5s before and 1.5s after. The process converged in 8 iterations.
The internal reactances estimated were x1 = 0.034p.u. and x2 = 0.185p.u. The "Variance method"
produced x1 = 0.0272p.u. and x2 = 0.0692p.u. It is important to observe that, since the model used
during the simulations for synchronous machines is of a higher-order, the transient reactances estimated
by both methods are an equivalent of the static internal parameters of each area, and each method depend
on different assumptions to obtain them. In this way, it is not possible to compare directly these partial
results.
With x1 and x2 , the internal voltages E1 (t)∠δ1 (t) and E2 (t)∠δ2 (t) are calculated. The electrical

92
 5.2. Area equivalent studies

1.0005
f COI
1
1 f
COI
2

0.9995
Frequency (p.u.)

0.999

0.9985

0.998

0.9975

0.997
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Time(s)

Figure 5.10: Study 4 - Test 1 - Frequencies

frequencies related to each equivalent generator are calculated according to Equation (3.5), making use
of the obtained δi (t). After calculating the frequency, a median filter is applied to reduce the peaks
caused by the application of the finite difference method to calculate the derivative in Equation (3.5).
To evaluate the dynamic equivalents obtained, the calculated electrical frequency of each equivalent
machine (denoted by fcalci ) is compared with the mean frequency (fCOI ) of each area (defined in Section
2.2.3) obtained from the simulation. The results obtained with the Iterative-IME method are presented
in Figures 5.11(a) and 5.11(b). Despite of the difference between the Iterative-IME and the "Variance
method", the results obtained for the frequency were pretty similar in the scale studied. For this reason,
only the results obtained with the Iterative-IME method are presented here.

1.0005 1.0005

f calc f calc
1 1 1
2
f COI
1
f COI
0.9995 2
0.9995
Frequency (p.u.)

Frequency (p.u.)

0.999
0.999
0.9985
0.9985
0.998

0.998
0.9975

0.9975 0.997

0.997 0.9965
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Time(s) Time(s)

(a) Frequency - Area 1 (b) Frequency - Area 2

Figure 5.11: Study 4 - Test 1 - Frequencies estimated

It can be seen that the estimated frequency of area 1 is very close to the mean frequency of that
area, which is expected since this area has only one generator. The differences are due to numerical

93
Chapter 5. Numerical results

inaccuracies of the methods used. About area 2, instead, the behavior of fcalc2 is slightly different from
fCOI2 . This happens because the measurement point is electrically closer to the Generator 2 than to the
hypothetical COI of the system, such that the influence of the frequency of the generator 2 (fG2 ) brings
the estimated fcalc2 closer to its behavior. This can be seen in Figure 5.12, where fG2 , fG3 and fG4 are
the actual frequencies of each generator of area 2 following the diagram of the test system (Figure 4.4).

1.0005

0.9995

0.999
Frequency (p.u.)

0.9985

0.998

0.9975 f
calc
2
f
G2
0.997
f G3
0.9965 f G4

0.996
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Time(s)

Figure 5.12: Study 4 - Test 1 - Frequencies of Area 2

However, it is worth observing in Figure 5.12 that the influence of fG3 and fG4 is also present in
fcalc2 . Between t = 20s and t = 21s it can be seen that fcalc2 presents a peak, following the behavior
of fG2 , but right after it decreases like fG3 and fG4 instead, such that the equivalent inertia related to f2
takes into account the contribution of all the machines of area 2.
The estimated inertia results for Test 1 obtained with the same time window used to estimate the
transient reactances (2s around the perturbation occurence) can be seen in Table 5.10, where "COI"
denotes the simulated inertia at the COI (here presented as reference for comparisons), "It.-IME" denotes
the inertia estimated with the Iterative-IME method and "Var. method" denotes the inertia estimated with
the "Variance method".
Table 5.10: Study 4 - Test 1 - Inertia estimations

COI (sim.) It.-IME Var. method

Area 1 6.5 6.2504 6.0760
Area 2 18.85 -0.7719 -0.1531

It can be seen that the inertia estimated for Area 1 is very close to the inertia of the COI of this
area (that is equal to the inertia of G1). In this test, the Iterative-IME produced better results than the
"Variance method". However, both methods failed to estimate the inertia for Area 2. This happens
because the assumption for the mechanical power assumed in Step 8 of the method doesn’t hold for this
area, due to the fact that the perturbation is located inside Area 2. The perturbation alters the moving

94
 5.2. Area equivalent studies

power such that it oscillates together with the loads of the area, as shown in Figure 5.13, plotted with data
coming from the simulation. The legend P eA2 stands for the active power exiting Area 2 and P mA2
represents the moving power related to the area computed according to the formula

4
X X X
P mA2 = P mGi − Ploads − Plosses (5.1)
i=2

where P mGi stands for the mechanical power of the generators i = 2, 3, 4 of the area, and Ploads and
Plosses are the sum of the active power consumed by the loads and the active power losses in the area,
respectively. In this part of the study, simulated data was used in this approach, to provide insights on
the results obtained in Table 5.10.

-0.75
PeA2

-0.8 PmA2

-0.85
Power (p.u.)

-0.9

-0.95

-1

-1.05

-1.1
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
time(s)

Figure 5.13: Study 4 - Test 1 - Moving power and active power of Area 2

Considering the moving power as known, the method is tested again and the estimations obtained for
Area 2 are HIt−IM E = 19.03s and HV ar = 18.5510s, less than 1% different from the HCOI . Hence,
to estimate properly the inertia of an equivalent area containing a perturbation and/or loads with high
voltage dependence, a complementary method to estimate the equivalent moving power is needed. This
motivated the method proposed in Section 4.2.5.3, tested for this purpose in Study 11 (Subsection 5.4.2).

5.2.1.2 Test 2 - Perturbation inside Area 1

A second experiment (named Test 2) is performed including a new load of 150MW and 50Mvar in Area
1, and a step increase of 20% in the active power consumption is simulated in this area.
For this case, the reactances estimated with the Iterative-IME method were x1 = 223.0201 p.u. and
x2 = 0.1249 p.u, considering a time window of 2s around the moment the perturbation occurred. The
increase of load in Area 1 was reflected direclty on the estimated x1 , much higher than in Case 1, while
the estimations of x2 were not so different. This happens because the presence of three generating units
in Area 2 partially compensates the perturbation locally, such that the load increase has not a big impact

95
Chapter 5. Numerical results

seen from the equivalent point of view. In Area 1, instead, the impact of a local load increase is much
bigger because the area is limited to only one generating unit.
Regarding the inertia constants estimated with the obtained equivalent reactances, Table 5.11 present
the results for the named Test 2.
Table 5.11: Study 4 - Test 2 - Inertia estimations

COI (sim.) It.-IME Var. method

Area 1 6.5 -22.2999 -34.7167
Area 2 18.85 18.7216 14.7812

Results in Table 5.11 show that the method was accurate to estimate the equivalent inertia of Area
2, but struggled again when trying to estimate the inertia of the area that contains the perturbation (for
the same reasons presented in Case 1). When the moving power of Area 1 is considered as known,
the estimations obtained with the Iterative-IME method improved to Hest = 7.179s for Area 1, while
the "Variance method" obtained H1 = 6.5030s. Despite the "Variance method" produced results more
accurate for Area 1, regarding Area 2 the Iterative-IME performed better. In general, it can be said the
methods are equivalent in terms of performance for estimating inertia.
Considering a sliding time window of 100 samples (2s), as defined in Section 4.2.1, the results
presented in Figure 5.14 were obtained. In this case, the moving power of Area 1 was considered as
known. In the legend, H1 and H2 refer to the estimated inertia of the equivalent machines of area 1 and
2, respectively. The black dashed lines represent the true value of the inertia of each area.

50
H1
45
H2
40

35

30
Inertia(s)

25

20
18.85
15

10

5 6.5

0
19.5 20 20.5 21
Time (s)

Figure 5.14: Study 4 - Test 2 - Inertias estimated

The method did not present high sensitivity for the size of the time window, such that the results
were similar to every length tested (1.5s to 5s). It can be seen that the inertias estimated for both areas
presented a peak in the first milliseconds after the perturbation, and later presented a nearly constant
behavior. The peaks are due to the use of finite difference method to calculate the first and second

96
 5.2. Area equivalent studies

derivative of the equivalent rotor angle. The use of filtering reduced those peaks, but they can still be
observed in both resulting signals.

5.2.1.3 Conclusions of Study 4

To compare the two methods studied in this Subsection, new tests were proposed, varying the type and
the location of the perturbation. Some of the perturbations considered were load step, load ramp, loss
of generation and short circuits. To summarize, results were accurate and practical when estimating the
inertia of the areas that does not include a perturbation. For the area that contains a perturbation, the
methods work but require the knowledge of the equivalent moving power of the area in time, which is
addressed later on in this thesis in Study 11 (Subsection 5.4.2), using the method presented in Section
4.2.5. Otherwise, the result will be negative inertia.
In terms of accuracy on the estimations of the equivalent inertias in comparison to the COI, no
method presented a definitive superior performance. For this reason, no method was discarded. It is
important to point out that the reactances estimated with both methods are not directly comparable in
the cases studied, as they depend on different assumptions and represent different equivalent circuits
obtained with data simulated using a higher-order model.

5.2.2 Study 5 - Extended Kalman Filter

Two tests were performed in this study to evaluate the method proposed in Section 4.2.3 similarly to how
the other methods were evaluated.

5.2.2.1 Test 1

First the EKF was fed with data provided by simulations with the Test-system B presented in Subsection
D.2, with the following conditions:

• Test-system used: Test-system B presented in Section D.2.

• Simulation software: Euler numerical integration method as proposed in [41], implemented in

Matlab.

• Perturbation simulated: disconnection of Generator 1 at t=0s and reconnection at t=0.2s;

• Model used for the synch. machines: Second order model (as presented in Subsection 2.2.1);

• Machine parameters: according to Table 5.12;

• Model of the load: dynamic (motor);

• Sampling time: 10ms. The total simulation last 10s.

According to the diagram presented in Figure D.2, the following variables were considered measured:
V1 ∠θ1 , V2 ∠θ2 , I12 ∠α12 .
Regarding the inputs of the method proposed in Section 4.2.3, the active and reactive power were
calculated as function of the measured voltages and currents. The transient reactance was considered as
known, as methods to calculate it have already been presented in this thesis and could possibly be used.
The mechanical power Pm was also considered known and equal to Pest .

97
Chapter 5. Numerical results

Table 5.12: Study 5 - Test 1 - machine parameters

H[s] D x0d [p.u.]

G1 5 2 0.054
G2 50 20 0.054

Considering as initial estimates H10 = 7 and D10 = 1 for machine 1, the results presented in Figure
5.15 were obtained.

7 2.5
Hestr Daestr
6.8

6.6 2

6.4

6.2 1.5
Inertia [s]

Damping

5.8 1

5.6

5.4 0.5

5.2

5 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time [s] Time [s]

(a) Inertia estimation (b) Damping estimation

Figure 5.15: Study 5 - Test 1 - Estimation results

It can be seen that the estimations obtained converge to values close to the expected (presented
in Table 5.12). Variating the initial estimates, the results were similar. For an initial estimate 100%
greater than the correct parameters, however, the process diverged, showing a dependence on the initial
estimates. The estimations regarding Generator 2 followed the same behaviour, and did not bring any
interesting information to add to the discussion of this subsection.
An important observation, however, is that the process noise covariance matrix (Qk , in Figure 4.7)
was considered null in this test. This parameter allows the method to consider modelling errors between
the assumed model and the true one, such that in practical applications Qk should be non-null. However,
in this test the process model adopted is exactly the same model used in the simulations, so considering
Qk non null would only bring inaccuracy to the method.

5.2.2.2 Test 2

The simulations to provide the data were carried out in the same conditions of Study 4, i.e., with the
Test-system C. Summarizing:

• Test-system used: Test-system C, presented in Section D.3;

• Simulation software: PowerFactory2018;

• Perturbations simulated: load step in L9;

• Model used for the synch. machines: two-axis IEEE standard detailed Model 2.2 [45];

98
 5.2. Area equivalent studies

• Machine parameters: according to Table D.2.

• Model of the loads: constant impedance;

• Losses: considered;

• Controllers: Governor, PSS and AVRs modelled using standards models and parameters available
in PowerFactory2018;

• Sampling time: 20ms.

Here, the process noise covariance matrix (Qk ) was considered non-null, as in the EKF the process
was modelled with the second order model for synchronous machines and in the simulations the ma-
chines were modelled according to the two-axis IEEE 2.2 standard model defined in [159]. As Qk is the
matrix that allows the EKF to process the difference in the models, it has to be well tuned. Different tests
were made choosing a relaxation of 1 to 20% to rotor speeds and rotor angles, 1 to 50% to inertia and
damping calibration, according to the order of the units of each variable.
The results obtained for speed and rotor angle for Area 1 can be seen in Figure 5.16, where blue
represents the simulated response and red represents the estimated one.

1.001 0.56
w1 delta 1
0.54 delta 1 EKF
w1 EKF
1
0.52

0.999 0.5
speed [p.u.]

angle [deg]

0.48
0.998
0.46

0.997 0.44

0.42
0.996
0.4

0.995 0.38
20 25 30 35 40 45 50 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
time [s] time [s]

(a) Speed estimation (b) Rotor angle estimation

Figure 5.16: Study 5 - Test 2 - Estimation results

It can be seen that the method estimated the rotor angle with acceptable error, but the speed was
estimated with higher errors. These results were very dependant on Qk . As this matrix allows the
algorithm to consider the difference between the process model and the model used in simulations, it
had to be tuned to produce accurate results. However, in any case it was not possible to obtain accurate
values for the inertia of the equivalent machine of Area 1. Figure 5.17 presents the result obtained.
As it can be seen, the method was not able to converge to the correct result. The value of the inertia
estimated increased with time, no matter the initial value used in the algorithm. Also the sampling rate
was changed looking for better results, but it did not have an important impact. Regarding Area 2, not
even the frequency estimated was close to the mean frequency of that area. For this reason, the results
of Area 2 were suppressed. Other tests were performed considering different perturbations, with similar
results. The work [160] suggests reducing the sampling time (through interpolation) to improve accuracy

99
Chapter 5. Numerical results

30
Hestr

25

20
Inertia [s]

15

10

0
20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Time [s]

Figure 5.17: Study 5 - Test 2 - Inertia estimated

and obtain convergence. However, [160] also reports strong difficulties of the method when dealing with
differences between the model simulated and model adopted in the EKF method.

5.2.2.3 Conclusions of Study 5

The method, in the way it was modelled in this thesis, showed to be limited for the interest of this
research. Using the classical model for generators as the process model of the EKF worked when the
data used was provided by simulations using the same models for the machines. When the method was
tested with simulations that consider a higher-order model for the generators, which is a more realistic
approach, the results were inaccurate in terms of inertia constant estimated. In this case, not only the
model of the generator was different, but also the presence of frequency control was taken into account
in the simulations.
In the literature, other works already provided some advance in this field. In [83], a different set of
algebraic equations is proposed as the measurement model of the EKF, and the results seemed to show
more robustness to handle differences in the process model. Also, the work [144] proposed the process
model considering speed control, what could probably improve the results in the conditions of this study.
Both works, however, are based on measurement models that only provide feedback information of the
rotor angle in the EKF prediction-correction loop. Explaining, the variables that can be measured by
PMUs can only be represented by algebraic equations that are functions of rotor angles, and not function
of inertia or damping. Hence, the only direct feedback that can be provided by the measurement model
is related to rotor angles, such that the other variables must be calibrated on a dependent indirect way.
This modelling issue bring concerns on the application of KF-based methods to wider applications.
When adopting higher order models, or extending the model to consider frequency control, the number of
parameters to be estimated are increased without increasing the number of variables that the measurement
model may provide direct feedback on. In other words, the complexity of the model increases without
increasing the amount of information acquired from the measurements available, what seems limiting.

100
 5.2. Area equivalent studies

Moreover, it was observed a strong dependence of the EKF on the tuning of the initial estimates and
on the tuning of the process noise covariance matrix. These issues may be overcome when only one
synchronous machine is evaluated, but may be a bigger problem to more complex studies, such as the
proposed idea of evaluating dynamic equivalents based on measurements obtained on the boundaries of
an area.
On a literature research, all the KF-based works found depend on individual monitoring of each
generating unit. Only the work [29] proposes the use of an EKF for evaluating the properties of the
COI, but it depends on full observability, what in practice is the same as monitoring each generating
unit. As debated in Section 3.6, the deployment of PMUs is still preliminary on many countries, such
that assuming observability of all the machines connected seem an assumption limited to very specific
locations or part of the grids.
As one of the goals of this project is to study the inertia estimation based on few available measure-
ment points on the grid, regardless their position on the terminals of the generators, the Iterative-IME
and Variance method together with the Least Squares method showed more promising results for this
purpose. Moreover, recently the work [84] showed a study with Least Squares methods outperforming
KF methods. For these reasons, it was decided to focus on the LS based methods and discontinue the
studies on KF-methods in the following.

5.2.3 Study 6 - Inertia estimation with system reduction

In this Study, the method proposed in Section 4.2.4 is used to evaluate test cases with more than one
PMUs installed at each area, according to Topic 3.
A benchmark test-system proposed in [161] with 66 buses was used, due to its bigger size in com-
parison to the previous test systems.
The details of the simulations are:

• Test-system used: Test-system D, presented in Section D.4;

• Simulation software: PowerFactory2018;

• Perturbations simulated: disconnection of generators;

• Model used for the synch. machines: two-axis IEEE standard detailed Model 2.2 [45];

• Machine parameters: according to Table 5.13.

• Model of the loads: constant impedance;

• Losses: considered;

• Controllers: Governor, PSS and AVRs modelled using standards models and parameters available
in PowerFactory2018;

• Sampling time: 20ms.

The equivalent inertias for each area of the system are given in Table 5.13, with reference to [161].
A simplified representation of the test-system is represented in Figure 5.18(a). Assuming PMUs
installed at the boundary buses (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2), measuring voltages and currents, and
considering the topology as known, the network is then reduced around those buses using the Ward

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Chapter 5. Numerical results

Table 5.13: Study 6 - Equivalent Inertias of the Test-system

Num. of Generators HCOI [s]

Area A 6 36.85
Area B 5 69.46
Area C 5 43.22

equivalent method. Note that any bus with a PMU can be considered a boundary bus to delimit an area
with the Ward equivalent method. Here, the boundary buses were selected according to area previously
delimited in [161]. The equivalent circuit to be determined can be seen in Figure 5.18(b), and each of the
equivalent machines obtained will be identified by the name of the bus where it is connected (i.e., A1,
A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2).

(a) Interarea connections (b) Dynamic equivalent

Figure 5.18: Study 6 - Test-system and dynamic equivalent

5.2.3.1 Test 1 - Perturbation inside Area B

The parameters of the equivalent generators are then estimated according to the occurrence of a pertur-
bation in the simulations. Case 1 considers the disconnection of generator B2bG, of 1295MVA nominal
power, connected at bus B2b (check D.4) inside Area B. Referring to Figure 5.18(b), the reactances es-
timated were respectively xA1 = 0.2150, xA2 = 0.3949, xB1 = 0.3504, xB2 = 0.0585, xC1 = 0.1499,
xC2 = 0.0602 p.u.
The electrical frequencies fj (t) related to each equivalent generator are calculated according to Equa-
tion (3.5), where the subscript j refers to each of the equivalent machines A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2. After
calculating fj (t), a median filter is applied to reduce the peaks caused by the finite difference method.
To be compared with the results of the simulation, the dynamic behavior of the COI of the equiv-
alent machines in Figure 5.18(b) is evaluated. Equation (2.21) is applied for Area A, considering the
equivalent machines j = A1, A2, obtaining f calcCOIA . The same is done for Area B, considering the
machines j = B1, B2, and for Area C, considering the machines j = C1, C2, and obtaining respec-
tively f calcCOIB and f calcCOIC . The frequency behavior of each Area can be seen in Figure 5.19, in

102
 5.2. Area equivalent studies

comparison to the true mean frequency of each area recorded from the simulations and identified in the
legend as fCOIA , fCOIB and fCOIC .

1
Freq.(p.u.)

f_COI_A
0.998 fcalc_COI_A

0.996
39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49
Time(s)
1
Freq.(p.u.)

f_COI_B
0.998 fcalc_COI_B

0.996
39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49
Time(s)
1
Freq.(p.u.)

f_COI_C
0.998 fcalc_COI_C

0.996
39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49
Time(s)

Figure 5.19: Study 6 - Test 1 - Mean Frequency of each Area

It can be seen that the differences are in the order of 10−4 , while the frequency decrease due to the
perturbation is in the order of 10−3 , such that the estimations can be considered as good representations
of the dynamic behavior of these areas.
Coming to the estimation of single inertias, additional insight can be gained on the phenomena con-
sidered. Using a time window of 5s around the time instant of the perturbation occurrence, the inertia
constants can be estimated solving the Swing Equation. Table 5.14 presents the results obtained for each
one of the six equivalent machines, and for the respective equivalent COI of each area.

Table 5.14: Study 6 - Test 1 - Equivalent inertia estimated [s]

Area A Area B Area C

HA1 45.38 HB1 -63.99 HC1 91.35
HA2 29.31 HB2 -127.39 HC2 307.47
HCOI 74.70 HCOI -191.38 HCOI 398.82

Comparing the estimated inertia at the COI with the simulated values seen in Table 5.13, it can
be seen that the estimation of HCOIA and HCOIC were far from the expected, and the estimation of
HCOIB was negative. This does not prevent the frequency overall dynamic behaviour to be accurate:

103
Chapter 5. Numerical results

all H estimates, both positive and negative, if used together, provide correctly the overall frequency
response.
Negative H estimates of Area B result because the perturbation is located inside this area. In this
situation, the assumption of slow behavior of the moving power in comparison to the generated power
is violated. This can be seen in Figure 5.20 with results obtained from the simulation of the complete
system, where Pintj is the power exiting Area j and Pmovj is the equivalent moving power of Area j,
according to Equation (4.51).

3.4
Power (p.u.)

PintA
3.2 PmovA

3
30 35 40 45 50 55 60
0
Power (p.u.)

PintB
-2 PmovB

-4
30 35 40 45 50 55 60
-1
Power (p.u.)

PintC
-2 PmovC

-3
30 35 40 45 50 55 60

Figure 5.20: Study 6 - Test 1 - Moving and generated powers

A second issue is related to the load model. In the considered case, loads are assumed as voltage-
dependent and therefore they are changing in time, as it can be seen in Figure 5.21 for Area A. This
still affects Equation (4.51) and the estimations of inertia of Table 5.14, which are actually significantly
different from those in Table 5.13. Due to this reason, the equivalent inertias estimated represent not only
the inertias of the synchronous machines, but also the inertial behavior of the change in the load. This
can be seen in Equation (4.49), considering that the calculated IEQ with the Ward equivalent is made
by both the equivalent generator current injection and the load current. This inertial response will be
called overall inertia (Hov ), to differ from the equivalent inertia of the synchronous machines, that will
be represented for now on in this study as Hsyn (instead of only H).
Considering all machines of Area A monitored, is possible to calculate the current injection IT of
(4.49) and distinguish the inertial response of the synchronous machines from the overall inertia for the-
oretical investigations. Using a sliding time window of 5s, Figure 5.22 represents the synchronous inertia
estimated for Area A in this conditions, using the proposed methodology. The dashed line represents the

104
 5.2. Area equivalent studies

1600
Load_A
1595

1590

1585

Active Power (MW)

1580

1575

1570

1565

1560

1555

1550
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Time(s)

Figure 5.21: Study 6 - Test 1 - Total load of Area A

true value.
It can be seen that between 42s and and 44s, the synchronous inertia estimated was very close to
the equivalent inertia of HsynA = 36.85s shown in Table 5.13. After t = 45s, the frequency control
takes part and the inertia estimation is affected, not representing anymore the equivalent inertia of the
generators of Area A.
An alternative to monitoring all generators is to use the method proposed in Section 4.2.5.3 to esti-
mate the equivalent moving power of this area. The studies with the referred method are presented in
Section 5.4.2.

50

45

40
36.85
35

30
Inertia (s)

25

20

15

10
Hsyn
5 A

0
39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49
time(s)

Figure 5.22: Study 6 - Test 1 - Inertia estimated of Area A

105
Chapter 5. Numerical results

5.2.3.2 Test 2 - Perturbation inside Area A

Test 2 considered the loss of the Generator A6G (494MVA) inside Area A. The equivalent inertias can
be seen in Table 5.15, where HOV stands for the Overall inertia estimated and HSY N stands for the
equivalent inertia estimated related to the synchronous machines, disregarding the behavior of the load
inside the Areas of study.

Table 5.15: Study 6 - Test 2 - Equivalent inertias estimated [s]

Area B Area C
HOV 200.55 69.14
HSY N 67.39 44.03

As it can be seen, the estimated HSY N were very close to the values in Table 5.13. In addition, it can
be concluded that the fault simulated has caused a higher impact in Area B than in Area C, due to the
load variation associated to voltage dependence. This can be seen by the difference between HOV and
HSY N of each area.

5.2.3.3 Conclusions of Study 6

This study presented estimated equivalent inertias based on measurements provided by PMUs spread in
the system. The methodology assumes the topology as known, and uses the Ward equivalent method to
reduce the system around the measurement points. Dynamic equivalents are built to represent the dy-
namic behavior of the areas connected to the boundary buses, and the inertia of each equivalent machine
is estimated.
Considering measurements provided by PMUs installed in boundary buses, the proposed methodol-
ogy is able to estimate the overall inertia of an area in practical conditions. The advantages of considering
internal measurement points are discussed properly in the studies 9 to 12, presented in Subsections 5.3.3
to 5.5.1.
Considering the specific case when all the synchronous machines of an area are monitored, the study
presents insights on the influence of the inertial response of the loads in the overall inertia. The possibil-
ities of estimating the equivalent load behaviour is discussed in Study 11 (Subsection 5.4.2).

5.3 RES integration studies

In this Section, the dynamics of the grid are studied in the presence of RES, connected to the grid through
converters.
First, the "Variance method" is used to check the possibility of estimating equivalent inertias consid-
ering as perturbation the connection of a wind power generator to a grid with only traditional synchronous
machines.
At second, the disconnection of a synchronous generator with the same power capacity of the con-
nected RES-unit is evaluated, in such a way that the power imbalance at the moment of the intervention
is approximately null. This practical situation is evaluated to see if the dynamics involved are enough to
produce variations detectable by the inertia estimation methods.

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 5.3. RES integration studies

5.3.1 Study 7 - Connection of a RES-based generator

For this study, the simulation performed had the following characteristics:

• Test-system used: Based on Test-system C, presented in Section D.3;

• Simulation software: PowerFactory2018;

• Perturbations simulated: Load step at t=10s. Connection of a wind-power generator at t=70s;

• Model used for the synch. machines: two-axis IEEE standard detailed Model 2.2 [45];

• Machine parameters: according to Table D.2.

• Model of the loads: constant impedance;

• Losses: considered;

• Controllers: Governor, PSS and AVRs modelled using standards models and parameters available
in PowerFactory2018;

• Sampling time: 20ms.

The test-system was modified to include a Wind power generator connected to bus 8, according to
Figure 5.23. All the other parameters of the grid are kept as original. The areas are defined around the
same boundary buses as Study 4. To recall the most important parameters, the inertias of G1, G2, G3 a G4
are H1 = H2 = 6.5s and H3 = H4 = 6.175s, respectively, such that the equivalent inertia at the COI of
Area 1 is HA1 = 6.5 and the equivalent inertia at the COI of Area 2 is HA2 = H2 + H3 + H4 = 18.85s.

Figure 5.23: Study 7 - Test-system

The Wind power generator (identified in Figure 5.23 as G5) is set to generate constant 20MW and
6.6Mvar when integrated to the grid, which is much smaller than the generators already connected (that
generate around 700MW each in the base case solution). The simulation lasts 100s, sampled at t=0.02s,
and two different events are inserted: at t=10s there is a load increase of 5% in the active and reactive
power of Load 7 (that was originally S = 967M W +i100M var), and at t=70s the Wind Power generator
is connected. The first event is inserted just to serve as base of comparison with the second event in terms
of magnitude of variations of frequency and power. The speed of the generators can be seen in Figure
5.24.

107
Chapter 5. Numerical results

1
fg1
0.9999 fg2
fg3
0.9998 fg4

0.9997
Frequency (p.u.)

0.9996

0.9995

0.9994

0.9993

0.9992

0.9991

0.999
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Time (s)

Figure 5.24: Study 7 - Frequencies of the generators

5.3.1.1 Results of Study 7

Considering PMUs installed at bus 5 and 6, the "Variance method" is applied to build the dynamic
equivalents of each area and then estimate the equivalent inertias. Figure 5.25 presents the frequencies
calculated as an output of the method (identified by fcalc ) in comparison to the true frequency of the COI
of each area obtained from the simulations.

1 1
f calc f calc
0.9999 1 0.9999 2
f COI f COI
1 2
0.9998 0.9998

0.9997 0.9997
Frequency (p.u.)

Frequency (p.u.)

0.9996 0.9996

0.9995 0.9995

0.9994 0.9994

0.9993 0.9993

0.9992 0.9992

0.9991 0.9991

0.999 0.999
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Time(s) Time(s)

(a) Area 1 (b) Area 2

Figure 5.25: Study 7 - Frequencies of the equivalent machines

Resembling the results of Study 4, the frequency estimated to Area 1 follows the frequency of the
COI of this Area perfectly, since this area is composed only by one generator. For Area 2, instead, the
frequency estimated is highly influenced by the electrical distance between boundary bus 6 (where the

108
 5.3. RES integration studies

measurements are acquired) and Generator 2, such that naturally the influence of the frequency of G2 in
the estimated frequency of the area is higher than the others. To observe better these phenomena, Figure
5.26 presents a zoom on the dynamic behaviour during the first perturbation.

1 1
f calc f calc
0.9999 1 0.9999 2
f COI f COI
1 2
0.9998 0.9998

0.9997 0.9997
Frequency (p.u.)

Frequency (p.u.)
0.9996 0.9996

0.9995 0.9995

0.9994 0.9994

0.9993 0.9993

0.9992 0.9992

0.9991 0.9991

0.999 0.999
8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22
Time(s) Time(s)

(a) Area 1 (b) Area 2

Figure 5.26: Study 7 - Frequencies of the equivalent machines - Zoom

To estimate the inertia of both areas, the following procedure is adopted: As Area 1 doesn’t contain
loads neither the perturbation, the practical approach of considering the mechanical power as constant in
the seconds following the perturbation is used. For Area 2, instead, this assumption doesn’t hold and may
result in negative inertias estimated, due to the behaviour of the moving power, as seen in the previous
sections of this thesis.
In the presence of a RES unit, the moving power of Area 2 can be expressed by
X X X X
PmovA2 (t) = Pm (t) + Pdec (t) − PL − Plosses (5.2)

where Pm (t) stands for the total mechanical by synchronous machines and Pdec (t) for the RES unit, that
in this study is considered constant. The other quantities were previously defined in Equation (4.51). In
this study, the moving power is considered as known.
Considering a sliding window of 300 samples (6s), the inertia of both areas was continuously esti-
mated in time and presented in Figure 5.27, where the dashed horizontal line represents the true values
of the COI. As it can be seen in Figure 5.27(a), the inertia estimated for Area 1 was very close to the
expected value for more than 5s after the occurrence of both perturbations. Later on, the estimation
degrades due to two reasons: first, the assumption of constant mechanical power does not hold for long,
as it slowly increases to match the new load demand. At second, the inertial response ends and the dy-
namic of Area 1 is governed mostly by its controllers. In the case considered, the time constant of the
controllers is around 4s. Considering the sliding window of 6s used, the response of the controllers start
to appear in the inertia estimated approximately 10s after the occurrence of the perturbation.
Regarding Area 2, Figure 5.27(b) shows also accurate estimations with respect to the expected equiv-
alent inertia of the COI. It is important to observe that this result was obtained assuming the moving
power as known, which is a strong assumption. Here, the assumption is made to demonstrate that the
connection of a wind power generator to the grid is an observable event that enables the methods studied
to estimate the equivalent inertia of the related area accordingly. To be fully practical, i.e., obtain the

109
Chapter 5. Numerical results

estimation of inertia based only on the measurements of the grid without assuming any other quantity as
known, it is necessary to estimate the moving power. A method to estimate it was presented in Section
4.2.5.3, with results presented in Section 5.4.2.

14 180
H H
1 2
12 160

140
10

120
8
6.5 100
Inertia(s)

Inertia(s)
6
80
4
60
2
40

0 18.85
20

-2 0

-4 -20
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Time(s) Time(s)

(a) Area 1 (b) Area 2

Figure 5.27: Study 7 - Equivalent inertias

To have an idea on the power and frequency variations following the event, Figure 5.28 depicts the
results regarding Area 2. As it can be seen, the impact of the connection of the wind power unit was
similar to the load step previously applied, both in terms of frequency and power. Hence, both events
produced imbalances with a magnitude high enough for the methods to make use of the data and estimate
inertia.

10-3

dP2 1.5
0.03 dF2

1
0.02
Derivative of freq. (p.u.)
Power imbalance (p.u.)

0.01 0.5

0 0

-0.01 -0.5

-0.02
-1

-0.03
-1.5

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Time (s)

Figure 5.28: Study 7 - Frequency and Power variations at Area 2

5.3.1.2 Conclusions of Study 7

In this study, the connection of a wind power generation was evaluated as an event and measurements
from the grid were used to estimate the equivalent inertias in the transient period. The estimations

110
 5.3. RES integration studies

were performed considering the delimitation of two areas. Regarding the area where the generator was
connected inside, the moving power was assumed as known and imported from the simulator. Regarding
the other area, instead, practical approaches were used. The inertias were accurately estimated in the
conditions considered.

5.3.2 Study 8 - Substitution of a small synchronous generator by a RES-based

generator
For this study, the Test-system C is modified according to Figure 5.29. A synchronous machine (identi-
fied as G6) is connected to bus 8 in the base case and the new power flow solution is obtained. The new
unit generates 20MW and 6.6Mvar, and has a nominal power of 100MVA with H=5s of inertia constant
(H=0.55s, scaled to the nominal power of G1,...,G4). Different simulations were performed, varying the
outputs of the RES unit connected.
The characteristics of the simulations are as follows:

• Test-system used: Based on Test-system C, presented in Section D.3;

• Simulation software: PowerFactory2018;

• Perturbations simulated: Load step at t=10s. Connection of a wind-power generator and simulta-
neous disconnection of synchronous generation at t=70s;

• Model used for the synch. machines: two-axis IEEE standard detailed Model 2.2 [45];

• Machine parameters: according to Table D.2.

• Model of the loads: constant impedance;

• Losses: considered;

• Controllers: Governor, PSS and AVRs modelled using standards models and parameters available
in PowerFactory2018;

• Sampling time: 20ms.

Figure 5.29: Study 8 - Test-system

111
Chapter 5. Numerical results

5.3.2.1 Test 1

In this test, three events were considered in the same simulation. First, the same load step of Study 7
is applied at t=10s. At t=70s, G6 is disconnected while G5 is connected generating exactly the same
amounts of active and reactive power that G6 was generating at that moment.
The variance method is applied, and the calculated frequencies of Area 1 and 2 can be seen in Figure
5.30, identified by fcalc and compared with the true frequency of the COI of each area (identified by fcoi ),
obtained from the simulations. As it can be observed, the frequencies were well estimated. However, it
is not possible to observe significant variations following the event at t=70s. The same can be said about
the ROCOF an the power imbalance related to each area, as depicted in Figure 5.31.

1 1
f calc f calc
0.9999 1 0.9999 2
f coi f coi
1 2
0.9998 0.9998

0.9997 0.9997
Frequency (p.u.)

Frequency (p.u.)

0.9996 0.9996

0.9995 0.9995

0.9994 0.9994

0.9993 0.9993

0.9992 0.9992

0.9991 0.9991

0.999 0.999
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Time(s) Time(s)

(a) Area 1 (b) Area 2

Figure 5.30: Study 8 - Test 1 - Frequencies of the equivalent machines

10-3 10-3

P1 1.5 P2 1.5
0.015
ROCOF 1 0.03 ROCOF 2

1 1
0.01 0.02
Power imbalance (p.u.)

Power imbalance (p.u.)

0.5 0.5
ROCOF (p.u./s)

ROCOF (p.u./s)

0.005 0.01

0 0 0 0

-0.005 -0.01 -0.5

-0.5

-0.01 -0.02
-1 -1

-0.03
-0.015
-1.5
-1.5

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Time (s) Time (s)

(a) Area 1 (b) Area 2

Figure 5.31: Study 8 - Test 1 - ROCOF and power imbalances

Consequently, the methods failed to estimate the inertia following the events happening at t=70s. The
resulting inertias can be seen in figure 5.32(a). The negative inertias obtained after t=70s for Area 2 is due
to a very small frequency variation, close to the limits of the integration method used in PowerFactory,
as it can be seen in Figure 5.32(b).

112
 5.3. RES integration studies

20 0.9994235
H f calc
1 0.999423 2
15 H2 f coi
2
0.9994225
10
0.999422

Frequency (p.u.)
5 0.9994215
Inertia(s)

0 0.999421

0.9994205
-5
0.99942
-10
0.9994195
-15
0.999419

-20 0.9994185
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 65 70 75 80
Time(s) Time(s)

(a) Equivalent inertias estimated (b) Zoom - Frequency of Area 2

Figure 5.32: Study 8 - Test 1 - Results of Area 2

However, it is important to point out that this case is quite extreme. The wind power unit G5 is
connected generating the same amount of reactive power of G6, which is not expected in real life, as the
RES-based machines work differently than the traditional ones in terms of generating reactive power.
Hence, at least a reactive power imbalance should be seen, which may lead to further active power flows
and active power imbalances. To test this hypothesis and to provide a test case more realistic, Test 2 was
carried out, modifying the injected reactive power of the wind power unit.

5.3.2.2 Test 2

In this test, the test-system is re-simulated with G5 generating Q=2Mvar when connected. This detail
forced the reactive power to be rebalanced, implying variations in the power flows and also variations in
the frequencies around the system. As it can be seen in Figure 5.33, now the event at t=70s is noticeable,
besides the variations are much smaller than the load increase applied at t=10s.

10-3

1 P2 1.5
f calc 0.03 ROCOF 2
0.9999 2
f COI 1
0.9998 2 0.02
Power imbalance (p.u.)

0.9997 0.5
ROCOF (p.u./s)

0.01
Frequency (p.u.)

0.9996
0 0
0.9995

0.9994 -0.01 -0.5

0.9993
-0.02
-1
0.9992
-0.03
0.9991 -1.5

0.999
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Time(s) Time (s)

(a) Frequency (b) Frequency and power variations

Figure 5.33: Study 8 - Test 2 - Variations at Area 2

Figure 5.34 depicts the estimated inertias for both Areas, with a sliding window of 6s. The black

113
Chapter 5. Numerical results

dashed horizontal lines represent the true inertia of each COI. In Figure 5.34(b), the green horizontal
lines depicts a representative value for the estimated inertias. The following criteria was used: if the
inertia estimated varied less than 5% during 25 samples (0.5s), it is considered constant and the average
value of the inertia estimates is taken as representative.

15
20 18.85
H1
HIA2 =16.55

15 HIIA2 =14.45
10

6.5 10
Inertia(s)

Inertia(s)
5
5

0
0

-5
H2

-5 -10
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Time(s) Time(s)

(a) Area 1 (b) Area 2

Figure 5.34: Study 8 - Test 2 - Equivalent inertias estimated

Using the criteria defined for estimating a representative value of inertia, after the first event the
I II
estimation obtained was HA2 = 16.55s, while after the second HA2 = 14.45s. As it can be seen, the
results show a decrease in the inertia estimated for Area 2, meaning that the estimation method was able
to detect the event and estimate the inertia of the area. However, the generator G6 is very small in terms
of nominal power and inertia in comparison to the other synchronous machines connected. Due to this
reason, the contribution of this generator to the equivalent inertia of Area 2 is very small and within the
deviation that the inertia estimations are presenting until now. Hence, it is possible to observe an inertia
decrease, but it is not possible to affirm yet that the decrease is due to the contribution of the generator
disconnected or due to inaccuracy of the method, since the frequencies and power imbalances registered
were much smaller than the ones registered following the first event. To investigate the inertia decrease
quantitatively, another study was performed considering bigger generating units, and is presented in the
next section.

5.3.2.3 Conclusions of Study 8

In this study, the connection of a wind power generator was performed at the same time as a synchronous
generator was taken out of service. In the specific case when both generators are small and the wind
power generator is connected supplying exactly the same active and reactive power that traditional unit
was providing in the instant before the connection, it was not possible to observe frequency and power
variations and hence to estimate equivalent inertias. However, simulating a scenario where the wind
power generator is connected supplying a slightly different reactive power was already enough to provide
frequency and power variations that applied to the methods leaded to reasonably acceptable monitoring
of inertia variation. This seems to be a more realistic case, once the wind power and the synchronous
generators differ on the way they produce or consume reactive power.

114
 5.3. RES integration studies

5.3.3 Study 9 - Substitution of a big synchronous generator by a RES-based gen-

erator
For this study, Test-system C is again taken as base. At t=5s the load step is applied at step increase of
5% at load 7. At t=20s, G4 is disconnected and a wind power generator (identified as G5) of the same
size of G4 (900MW nominal power) is connected to bus 10, as depicted in Figure 5.35. The expected
I
equivalent inertias at the COI of area 2 are HCOIA2
= 18.85 while G1...G4 are connected and and
II
HCOIA2
= 12.675 after the disconnection of G4.

Figure 5.35: Study 9 - Test-system

The characteristics of the simulations are as follows:

• Test-system used: Based on Test-system C, presented in Section D.3;

• Simulation software: PowerFactory2018;

• Perturbations simulated: Load step at t=5s. Connection of a wind-power generator and simultane-
ous disconnection of synchronous generation at t=20s;

• Model used for the synch. machines: two-axis IEEE standard detailed Model 2.2 [45];

• Machine parameters: according to Table D.2.

• Model of the loads: constant impedance;

• Losses: considered;

• Controllers: Governor, PSS and AVRs modelled using standards models and parameters available
in PowerFactory2018;

• Sampling time: 20ms.

In the present, case G5 is set to generate 711.4MW and 192.9Mvar, exactly the power supplied by
G4 one instant before its disconnection, resembling the previous study. However, it was not possible
to impose exactly the same quantities. Due to particularities of the scenario, the simulator connected
the wind power unit generating 719MW and 195Mvar instead of the imposed values. These is due to
how the software refers the quantities. The input is referred to a nominal voltage, which is not the
current operating point in the moment of the imposed event. As this was a study imposing quite extreme
conditions, as seen in the previous subsection, it was decided that investigating this software issue to

115
Chapter 5. Numerical results

perform a perfect simulation in terms of power connection and disconnection was not worth, and it was
decided to continue the study with the data provided by the simulation as it was described.
As it can be seen in Figure 5.36 that the magnitude of the variations of frequency and power related
to Area 2 were significant.

10-3
0.04

PA2 1.5
0.03
ROCOFA2
1
0.02
Power imbalance (p.u.)

ROCOF (p.u./s)
0.01 0.5

0 0

-0.01 -0.5

-0.02
-1

-0.03
-1.5

-0.04
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Time (s)

Figure 5.36: Study 9 - Simulation results

5.3.3.1 Results of Study 9

Considering the moving power of the area as monitored, the equivalent inertia of Area 2 was estimated
with a time window of 6s. Results can be seen in Figure 5.37, where the black dashed lines are the actual
values of inertia before (H=18.85) and after (H=12.675) the disconnection of G4. The green lines are
the representative estimations chosen considering the same criteria adopted in the previous section, i.e.,
if the inertia estimated varied less than 5% during 25 samples (0.5s), it is considered constant and the
average value of the inertia estimate is taken as representative.
The first comment that can be made is that clearly the estimated equivalent inertia after the second
event decreased in comparison to the first. For a quantitative comparison, after the first event the rep-
I
resentative inertia estimated was HA2 = 14.74s, while after the second event, the representative inertia
II I II
estimated was HA2 = 8.84s. The difference is HA2 − HA2 = 5.9s, which is very close to the inertia of
the disconnected generator (HG4 = 6.175s).
A second observation regards the negative inertia estimated between 15s and 20s. This is due to the
action of the controllers present in the grid, which the methods are not able to take into consideration.
Hence, these estimations are misleading. To differentiate these estimations from the true estimations
of inertia following the perturbation, the criteria for defining a representative estimation can be used.
Following the first seconds after the perturbation, the inertia estimations are constant for more than 0.5s
I
and the representative estimation HA2 = 14.74s was obtained. This is valid until t=10s, when the inertia
starts to variate and does not become constant until the other perturbation happens. Considering the
period between t=10s and t=20s, it can be said that the estimations obtained in this time window are
not representative. Three different causes can be enumerated: whether the inertia of the area is varying
substantially every second (which is not common, since it would need connections/disconnections of

116
 5.3. RES integration studies

25

20
18.85
HIA2 =14.74
15

12.675
HIIA2 =8.84
10

Inertia(s)
5

-5

-10
HA2

-15
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Time(s)

Figure 5.37: Study 9 - Equivalent inertia of A2

generators), whether many different perturbations are happening one after the other, with high impact,
whether the frequency is oscillating due to the controllers. The latter is the most common one.
I II
An additional comment that can be made is that both HA2 and HA2 were much smaller than the true
I II
inertia of the COI of Area 2 (HCOIA2
= 18.85 and HCOIA2
= 12.675). This happens because bus 6
(the boundary bus of Area 2, where the PMU is considered to be installed) is electrically closer to G2
than to the other generators, such that the estimated frequency of Area 2 (fcalc2 ) is much closer to the
frequency of G2 (fG2 ) than to the frequency of the COI of Area 2 (fCOI ), as it can be seen in Figure
5.38(a). However, it can be seen in Figure 5.38(b) that right after t=20s, fcalc2 follows a concave curve
influenced by the dynamics of G3 and G4, and similar to the curve that fCOI presents. After t=20.5s,
fcalc2 follows the convex trend of fG2 . This explains the first peak right after t=20s and the following
decrease after 20.5s.

0.9996 0.9996
f calc
2
f g2
0.99958 0.99958
f COI

0.99956 0.99956
Frequency (p.u.)

Frequency (p.u.)

0.99954 0.99954

0.99952 0.99952
f calc
2
f g2
0.9995 0.9995
f COI

0.99948 0.99948
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 20 20.2 20.4 20.6 20.8 21 21.2 21.4 21.6 21.8 22
Time (s) Time (s)

(a) Frequencies (b) Frequencies - Zoom

Figure 5.38: Study 9 - Results of Area 2

Despite of that, one may be interested on having a more accurate information of the dynamic be-
haviour of the COI of the studied Area, not a information biased by the electrical distance of the mea-

117
Chapter 5. Numerical results

surement point to the closest and to the other generator. For that, advantages can be taken if data coming
from more measurement points are available.
Considering a PMU installed at bus 3, and applying the Ward equivalent method presented in Section
4.2.4, the results of Figure 5.39 are obtained. It can be seen in Figure 5.39(a) that now the frequency
estimated follows much closer the trend of the COI frequency of the referred area. Moreover, it can be
seen in Figure 5.39(b) that the equivalent inertia estimated matches the values of HCOIA2 following the
first event, and was close to the expected value after the second event. Although the oscillations are not
ended up when the second event takes place, the correct values of the moving power of Area 2 provide
enough information for the method to estimate correctly the inertia in most of the time window evaluated.

1 25
f calc HA2
0.9999 2
f COI
2
20
0.9998
18.85
0.9997
Frequency (p.u.)

15
Inertia(s)

0.9996 12.675
HIIA2 =11.82
0.9995
10
0.9994

0.9993
5

0.9992

0.9991 0
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Time(s) Time(s)

(a) Frequency (b) Inertia estimated

Figure 5.39: Study 9 - Results of Area 2 considering more PMUs

5.3.3.2 Conclusions of Study 9

In this study it was possible to see that the substitution of synchronous generation by a decoupled gen-
eration generates a dynamic response of the grid that can be monitored by PMUs and used to estimate
equivalent inertias from the points of measurements. Moreover, the decrease in inertia according to
the disconnected synchronous machine is observable quantitatively in a sliding window approach. This
study also showed the advantage of making use of more measurement points spread on the grid, which
may provide a better picture of the COI of an area, while using only data acquired on the boundary bus
gives estimations biased by the electrical distance of the generators involved.

5.4 Additional studies

In this section, two different studies are presented, in complement to the previous ones.
In study 10, a probed output signal that can be treated as a perturbation to estimate the inertia of the
area is proposed, in complement to the previous studies that considered the occurrence of non-controlled
events.
In Study 11, the method proposed in Section 4.2.5.3 to estimate the equivalent moving power of
an area is tested with two different types of perturbation, and is further used to estimate the equivalent
inertia of an area in a practical approach, in complement to the previous sections where the equivalent
moving power was considered as known.

118
 5.4. Additional studies

5.4.1 Study 10 - Tests considering a Probe

All the previous studies presented depended on observing a perturbation on the grid to estimate inertia.
The load steps are common events, but still non controlled by the TSO, such that the power imbalance
over a time window may be too small to be observed by the inertia estimation methods studied. This
topic is approached in Section 5.5. In the present study, the idea is to evaluate the use of a probe to
generate a controlled power imbalance to estimate inertia.
Here, Test-system C was used as base and modified according to the needs of the study. A Probe was
connected in the intermediate bus 8, as depicted in Figure 5.40. It was simulated in PowerFactory by a
constant PQ load varying its magnitude according to an input square wave. It is important to observe that
the whole system counts with approximately 3250 MW of installed capacity, from which Area 2, where
the probe is installed, counts with approximately 2500 MW.

Figure 5.40: Study 10: Test-system

The characteristics of the simulations are:

• Test-system used: Based on Test-system C, presented in Section D.3;

• Simulation software: PowerFactory2018;

• Perturbations simulated: Probe (controlled square wave);

• Model used for the synch. machines: two-axis IEEE standard detailed Model 2.2 [45];

• Machine parameters: according to Table D.2.

• Model of the loads: constant impedance;

• Losses: considered;

• Controllers: Governor, PSS and AVRs modelled using standards models and parameters available
in PowerFactory2018;

• Sampling time: 20ms.

5.4.1.1 Test 1 - 20MW peak-to-peak

In this study, the profile imposed to the probe was 20MW peak-to-peak, with a period of 10s as depicted
in Figure 5.41.

119
Chapter 5. Numerical results

30
Probe

25

20

Power (MW)
15

10

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Time(s)

Figure 5.41: Study 10 - Test 1 - Probe

Considering 20s of simulation, the "Variance method" was applied to build the dynamic equivalents
of each area considering PMUs installed at the boundary buses 5 and 6, and in the "internal" bus 10. The
frequencies estimated can be seen in Figure 5.42.

1.00035 1.0004

1.0003
1.0003
1.00025

1.0002
1.0002
Frequency (p.u.)

Frequency (p.u.)

1.00015

1.0001 1.0001

1.00005
1
1

0.99995 f calc f
calc
2
1 0.9999
f COI f
COI
0.9999 1
2

0.99985 0.9998
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Time(s) Time(s)

(a) Area 1 (b) Area 2

Figure 5.42: Study 10 - Test 1 - Frequencies

Once again, the assumption of slow moving power was adopted for Area 1 while for Area 2 the probe
and the loads were considered as monitored. Both the inertias were well estimated, as it can be seen in
Figure 5.43, considering a sliding time window of 5s.
For the tested 20MW peak-to-peak probe, the maximum frequency variation observed was 0.46mHz
peak-to-peak.

5.4.1.2 Test 2 - Perturbation size vs accuracy of the method

In this study, the probe profile imposed was reduced in terms of peak-to-peak power consumed, to ob-
serve the accuracy of the Least-squares method for estimating the inertia vs the size of the probe. In this
test, none of the MEM were used. Instead, the outputs of the simulation in terms of COI frequencies and
power imbalances were considered, because here the idea is to evaluate the minimum power imbalance

120
 5.4. Additional studies

25

20 18.85

15

Inertia(s) 10

6.5

0 HA1
HA2

-5
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Time(s)

Figure 5.43: Study 10 - Test 1 - Inertias estimated

that can still provide accurate estimations of inertia in terms of an approach based on solving the swing
equation through least squares, regardless the MEM used.
To investigate the proposed question, different simulations were performed. First, a probe of 10 MW
peak-to-peak was used. Results can be seen in Figure 5.44, obtained with a sliding time window of 5s.
The peak-to-peak variation of frequency observed was 0.225mHz, and the inertia estimated was close to
the expected values, as it can be seen in Figure 5.44(b).

10-4
2.5 22
HA2
2 20 18.85

1.5 18
Derivative of frequency (p.u.)

16
1
14
0.5
Inertia(s)

12
0
10
-0.5
8
-1
6
-1.5 4

-2 2

-2.5 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
time(s) Sample (time)

(a) Derivative of frequency - Area 2 (b) Inertia estimated - Area 2

Figure 5.44: Study 10 - Test 2 - Probe of 10MW peak-to-peak

Later, the peak-to-peak power input of the probe was reduced until it started to influence on the
results. The length of the sliding window was kept the same for every test (5s). The estimations were
still accurate until a probe of 5MW was used, with a related frequency variation around 0.1 mHz peak-
to-peak. Below 5 MW, the inertia estimation degraded as it can be seen in Figure 5.45(b) for a probe of
4 MW. This is due to the degree of accuracy of the integration method used in PowerFactory2018, such
that the finite difference operation involved in frequency and ROCOF calculations were affected. The
peak-to-peak recorded frequency variation was 0.0901 mHz.

121
Chapter 5. Numerical results

This behaviour is aggravated in the simulation considering the probe of 2 MW. Comparing the deriva-
tive of frequency between the probe of 2 MW (Figure 5.46(a)) and the probe of 10 MW (Figure 5.44(a)),
the difference in accuracy is visible.

10-4
1 22
H
0.8 20 18.85 A2

0.6 18
Derivative of frequency (p.u.)

16
0.4
14
0.2

Inertia(s)
12
0
10
-0.2
8
-0.4
6
-0.6 4

-0.8 2

-1 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
time(s) Sample (time)

(a) Derivative of frequency - Area 2 (b) Inertia estimated - Area 2

Figure 5.45: Study 10 - Test 2 - Probe of 4MW peak-to-peak

10-5
6 22
HA2
20 18.85
4 18
Derivative of frequency (p.u.)

16
2
14
Inertia(s)

12
0
10

8
-2
6

-4 4

-6 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
time(s) Sample (time)

(a) Derivative of frequency - Area 2 (b) Inertia estimated - Area 2

Figure 5.46: Study 10 - Test 2 - Probe of 2MW peak-to-peak

A summary of the results can be seen in Figure 5.47, where the error obtained in the inertia estima-
tions is plotted against the size of the probe. It was necessary a probe of at least 5 MW peak-to-peak to
obtain estimations with error smaller than 10%. In this case, the minimum frequency variation necessary
was 0.1mHz, and the probe was tested in an Area of 2500MW power capacity. The study didn’t con-
sider noise on measurements, and the limit was established according to the numerical limitations of the
integration method used.
Considering real cases, the limitation is the relation between the magnitude of variations of frequency
in comparison to the measurement noise. If the magnitude of the noise is known, and also the typical
constant of inertia the area where the probe should be installed, the minimum size of the probe can be
determined according to the swing equation. Considering this test an example, for an area of 18s of
inertia and 2500MW installed, the minimum peak-to-peak frequency variation needed was 0.1mHz to

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 5.4. Additional studies

estimate inertia with an error of less than 10%, obtained with a probe of 5 MW peak-to-peak.

40

35

30

Inertia estimation error (%)

25

20

15

10

0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Peak-to-peak power (MW)

Figure 5.47: Study 10 - Accuracy of the tests

5.4.1.3 Conclusions of Study 10

This section presented simulations and results considering a Probe as a font of power imbalance to
estimate the equivalent inertias of the system. In the first test, with a Probe of 20MW peak-to-peak,
inertia could be well estimated in the conditions considered.
In the second test, the accuracy of the Least-Squares method was evaluated vs the size of the pertur-
bation. The inertia estimation degraded when a probe of less than 5MW peak-to-peak was used in the
test-system studied (in an area of 2500 MW installed capacity). This happened due to numerical limita-
tions of the integration method used in the simulations. In real cases, the limitations of estimating inertia
using a probe would depend on how small are the variations of frequency due to the power imbalance
imposed by the probe in comparison to the noise on the measurement obtained.

5.4.2 Study 11 - Inertia estimation considering moving power estimation

As seen in the previous studies, the assumption of a slow moving power was the cause of many estimation
errors when dealing with an equivalent area containing a perturbation and/or voltage dependent loads.
In those cases, assuming the generators or otherwise the loads as monitored allowed therefore accurate
estimations of the equivalent inertia at the COI of an Area. However, it is a strong requirement for real
power systems.
An alternative is to estimate the equivalent moving power through the method presented in Section
4.2.5. In this study, simulations were performed using Test-system C, and considered two different types
of perturbation. The main details of the simulations are as follows:

• Test-system used: Test-system C, presented in Section D.3;

• Simulation software: PowerFactory2018;

• Perturbations simulated: depending on the test;

123
Chapter 5. Numerical results

• Model used for the synch. machines: two-axis IEEE standard detailed Model 2.2 [45];

• Machine parameters: according to Table D.2.

• Model of the loads: constant impedance;

• Losses: considered;

• Controllers: Governor, PSS and AVRs modelled using standards models and parameters available
in PowerFactory2018;

• Sampling time: 20ms.

5.4.2.1 Test 1 - Load behaviour estimation

In this first test, the perturbation considered was a three-phase solid short-circuit. Case 1 considers a
short-circuit at bus 5 and Case 2 considers a short-circuit at bus 11. All the perturbations were assumed
at t=20s and the simulations lasted 50s. The short-circuits considered in each case were cleared after
0.5s.
During the simulation, the voltages at all the buses are recorded. Applying Equation (4.56), the
voltage profiles presented in Figure 5.48 were obtained with different set of buses. Following the legend
of the Figure, VLs refers to the set of load buses (i.e. bus 7 and bus 9), VGs refers to the set of generation
buses of Area 2 (bus 2,3,4) and VB refers to the boundary bus of Area 2 (bus 6). These comparisons were
made because [152] suggests to use the voltages at generation buses to estimate the load behaviour, if
load buses are not directly monitored (as showed in Equation (4.55)). However, as it can be seen in both
cases, the voltage profile of the boundary bus (VB ) was closer than VGs to the set of load buses (VLs ).

1.4
1.3
VLs
1.3
1.2 VGs
Magnitude of voltage (p.u.)
Magnitude of voltage (p.u.)

1.1 1.2 VB

1
1.1

0.9
1

0.8
VLs 0.9
0.7
VGs
0.8
0.6 VB

0.5 0.7
15 20 25 30 15 20 25 30
Time (s) Time (s)

(a) Case 1 - SC at bus 5 (b) Case 2 - SC at bus 11

Figure 5.48: Study 11 - Test 1 - Voltage magnitudes

Moreover, it is possible to obtain a voltage profile closer to VLs if the voltage of more buses within
the area is monitored by a suitable number of PMUs. The best case would be obviously monitoring
directly the load buses. So, disregarding this possibility, the second best solution obtained applying
Equation (4.56) was obtained monitoring the boundary bus 6 and the transfer buses 8 and 10, what will
be referred here as Set1. Whenever the voltage at the generation buses were considered, the behaviour

124
 5.4. Additional studies

of the equivalent voltage deviated from VLs . Figure 5.49 presents VSet1 , the voltage profile of the loads
(VLs ) and the voltage at the boundary bus (VB ). As it can be seen, VSet1 presents a closer behavior to
VLs than VB , showing the advantage of having more measurement points for this finality.

1.3

VLs
1.2
VSet1

Magnitude of voltage (p.u.) 1.1

VB

0.9

0.8

0.7
15 20 25 30
Time (s)

Figure 5.49: Study 11 - Test 1 - Case 2 - Voltage profiles

Applying (4.53) to Set1, the results presented in Figure 5.50 were obtained. Following the legends,
Ploads is the true power consumed by the loads recorded during the simulation, while Plest represents
the estimated power. As it can be seen, the use of it was possible to estimate the load behaviour with
errors smaller than 10% without monitoring directly the load buses. The use of the estimated load power
for inertia estimation is approached in the next test.

Ploads
5.5
Pl
5 est
Power (p.u.)

4.5

3.5

2.5

2
15 20 25 30
Time (s)

Figure 5.50: Study 11 - Test 1 - Case 2 - Load behavior

5.4.2.2 Test 2 - Moving power estimation

In this second test, a step in Load 7 is applied at t=20s. The voltage profiles can be seen in Figure 5.51
where all the legends respect the same quantities defined in the previous test.
The behaviour of the equivalent load of Area 2 is estimated using Equations (4.53) and (4.56). Here,
the total load after the disturbance is considered as the reference Pprod in Equation (4.53). The results ob-
tained using Set1 are presented in Figure 5.52, where Ploads is the true behaviour of the loads (acquired

125
Chapter 5. Numerical results

from the simulator) and Plest is the estimated one. As it can be seen also in this test, Set1 produced
acceptable results, showing that monitoring the voltage at all load buses is not necessarily mandatory.
Therefore, PMUs are considered available at bus 6 and at buses 8 and 10 (Set1) for the remaining of this
test, and the estimated power behaviour PL related to this set is used for means of inertia estimation.
Stating the expression of the equivalent the moving power of Area 2,

5
X X X
PmovA2 (t) = PmGi (t) − PL (t) − Plosses (t)
i=2

P5 P
the remaining term PM L , i=2 P mGi − Plosses still needs to be estimated.
Using the method proposed in Section 4.2.5.3 with an assumed droop of 5%, the result can be seen in
Figure 5.53, where PM Lsim denotes the reference output of the simulator and PM LEst denotes the signal
obtained with the proposed approach.
Considering the estimated PM L and PLoads , finally the moving power (Pmov ) of Area 2 can be
obtained. The result can be seen in Figure 5.54 identified as Pmovest and compared with output of
the simulator identified as Pmovsim . As it can be seen, the results obtained were accurate during more
than 10s after the perturbation. The later mismatches are due to the frequency control, that resulted in
differences between the projected PM L and the real one, as seen in Figure 5.53.

0.98 3.48

3.46
Magnitude of voltage (p.u.)

0.975

3.44
Power (p.u.)

0.97

3.42

0.965
3.4
VLs
0.96 Ploads
VSet1 3.38
Pl
VB est

0.955 3.36
15 20 25 30 15 20 25 30
Time (s) Time (s)

Figure 5.51: Study 11 - Test 2 - Voltage profiles Figure 5.52: Study 11 - Test 2 - Load behaviour

With the obtained moving power of Area 2, it is possible to use one of the inertia estimation methods
and obtain the equivalent inertia of Area 2. As in this study PMUs were considered available at buses 6,
8 and 10 (the defined Set1), the data coming from these units were used to build a dynamic equivalent
that presents a dynamic behaviour that represents better the behaviour of the COI. If instead only the
data of bus 6 was used, the dynamic equivalent obtained would be biased by the proximity of this bus
and Generator 2, as seen in Study 9 (Subsection 5.3.3).
Hence, the system reduction method (Section 4.2.4) was applied and the estimated inertia at the COI
of Area 2 can be seen in Figure 5.55, obtained with a sliding window of 6s. Following the legend,
HA2I refers to the use of the old assumption of slow behaviour of the moving power, here presented for
comparison, and HA2II refers to the inertia obtained using Pmovest presented in Figure 5.54. The black
dashed line, referred as HCOIA2 depicts the true value of the inertia at the COI of Area 2. The green
dashed line (HA2r ) refers to the representative value estimated for HA2II obtained using the following

126
 5.4. Additional studies

2.61 -0.82

2.6
-0.84
2.59

2.58 -0.86
Power (p.u.)

Power (p.u.)
2.57
-0.88
2.56

2.55 -0.9
PML Pmov
2.54 sim sim

PML -0.92 Pmov

2.53 Est est

2.52 -0.94
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Time (s) Time (s)

Figure 5.53: Study 11 - Test 2 - PM L of Area 2 Figure 5.54: Study 11 - Test 2 - PM ov of Area 2

criteria: if the inertia estimated varied less than 5% during 25 samples (0.5s), it is considered constant
and the average value of the inertia estimates is taken as representative.
As it can be observed in Figure 5.55, the proposed method to estimate the equivalent moving power
enabled estimating positive values for the inertia of the area containing the perturbation, and therefore
solves this issue. The errors obtained in comparison to the true inertia at the COI were smaller than 10%.
This result shows that it is possible to estimate the equivalent inertia of an area in a full practical way
based on PMU measurements.

25

20 18.85

15 HA2 =17.03
III

10
Inertia(s)

HA2
I
0 HA2
II

HCOI
A2
-5
HA2
r

-10
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Time(s)

Figure 5.55: Study 11 - Test 2 - Inertia estimations

5.4.2.3 Conclusions of Study 11

In this study, the estimation of the equivalent moving power of an area was approached. The study was
divided in three main steps: estimating the load behavior, estimating the moving power and estimating
the inertia.
A method to estimate the equivalent behaviour of loads was tested, assuming the knowledge of an
average estimation of the total power consumed by loads of the area in steady-state. For the simulations

127
Chapter 5. Numerical results

performed, the method succeeded in estimating the equivalent load behavior of an area that contained
two different loads. Two different types of perturbations were tested: short-circuits and load steps.
It is important to point out that the estimations were performed considering the constant impedance
model for the load both in the simulations and in the method. So far in this thesis, which motivated
the study of a method to estimate the load behaviour was the voltage dependence of the loads. As
reported in [148], the frequency dependence has lower impact in inertia estimation studies. Hence, the
constant impedance model was adopted in detriment of the ZIP or a frequency dependent ZIP model. For
applications with real data, the approach [154] can be considered for identifying the proportions of the
ZIP model in this case, adapting the method presented in Section 4.2.5.3 according to Equation (2.37).
The moving power of the studied area was composed by the estimated equivalent load behaviour and
an estimation of the mechanical power and losses together. The obtained moving power was accurate
with the outputs of the simulator for the fist 10s after the perturbation. Finally, the inertia of the studied
area was estimated using the moving power obtained, with errors smaller than 10%.
The section also showed the advantages of using data from spread PMUs available in the area. For the
point of view of the equivalent load behaviour, the use of a set of measurements obtained at transfer buses
enabled to increase the accuracy of the estimations in comparison to only measuring at the boundary bus.
To recall, Study 9 (Subsection 5.3.3) had already shown that the use of data coming from spread PMUs
inside the area of study enables to build a dynamic equivalent that represents better the behaviour of the
COI of the referred area. Hence, both steps of estimating the equivalent inertia of an area have benefits
when more PMUs are available.

5.5 Normal load variation studies

In this section, two different studies are presented. The first one approaches the use of the MEMs to
estimate inertia after normal load variations. The second one approaches the dynamic matrix method
presented in Section 4.2.6.

5.5.1 Study 12 - MEM with moving power estimation method

This study tests the "Variance" method (Subsection 4.2.2.2) together with the moving power estimation
method (Section 4.2.5.3) to evaluate inertia estimation following normal load variations. In the previous
sections, these methods were already used to estimate the inertia of an equivalent area after the occur-
rence of a load step, with accurate results. Here, in this study, the idea is to test how the methods perform
with normal load variations (i.e., very small changes at every second), instead of just one large load step.
For the following studies, PMUs were considered installed at bus 5, 6, 8 and 10, as depicted in Figure
5.56.

• Test-system used: Test-system C, presented in Section D.3;

• Simulation software: PowerFactory2018;

• Perturbations simulated: normal load variation;

• Model used for the synch. machines: two-axis IEEE standard detailed Model 2.2 [45];

• Machine parameters: according to Table D.2.

128
 5.5. Normal load variation studies

• Model of the loads: constant impedance;

• Losses: considered;

• Controllers: Governor, PSS and AVRs modelled using standards models and parameters available
in PowerFactory2018;

• Sampling time: 20ms.

Figure 5.56: Study 12 - Considered PMUs

To simulate "normal load variations", an input profile was applied to the load connected to bus 7. The
profile consisted in five sequential load steps applied at every second from t=20s to t=25s, varying from
increase and decrease of magnitudes up to 10% of the nominal values of the active and reactive power of
the load (S = 967M W + i100M V Ar). The profile can be seen in Figure 5.57.

1080

1060

1040
Power(MW)

1020

1000

980 PL
7

960
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Time(s)

Figure 5.57: Study 12 - Load profile imposed

Regarding the dynamic equivalents, the transient reactances of Area 1 and Area 2 were estimated
using a time window of 5s from 18.5s to 23.5s. As this load profile is expected to represent normal
load variations, it is expected that the transient reactances estimated are good equivalents for the whole
period of variations, and then kept constant from this time on. In this study, the limit of a normal load
variation considered was 10%, as it was simulated. If, instead, a higher load step was applied, it could
be studied alone as a single perturbation, as in the previous sections, with a transient reactance estimated
exclusively for that event.

129
Chapter 5. Numerical results

After the transient reactances are calculated, the internal voltages of each equivalent machine can be
calculated. Using Equation (3.5), it is possible to calculate the frequencies of each area. Figure 5.58
presents the frequencies of the equivalent machines obtained (fcalcj in the legend), against the frequen-
cies of the COI of each area (fCOIj where j = A1, A2 represents the area). The frequency obtained
for Area 1 is based only on the measurement of bus 5, while the frequency of Area 2 is obtained taking
advantage of the measurements at bus 6,8 and 10. As seen before in this thesis, the use of measurements
coming from buses inside the considered Area 2 enables a more accurate estimation of the COI frequency,
which is easier to interpret in comparison to the frequency estimated only using the measurements at bus
6.

1 1

f Calc 0.9998
f Calc
0.9998 A2
A1
0.9996 f COI
0.9996 f COI A2
A1
0.9994
Frequency (p.u.)

Frequency (p.u.)

0.9994
0.9992
0.9992
0.999
0.999
0.9988

0.9988
0.9986

0.9986 0.9984

0.9984 0.9982
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Time(s) Time(s)

(a) Area 1 (b) Area 2

Figure 5.58: Study 12 - Frequencies estimated

Here, resembling Study 11, the total load after the analyzed interval is considered as the reference
Pprod in Equation (4.53). Results are presented in Figure 5.59, where Ploads refers to the output signal
of the simulator and Plest refers to the estimated quantity. This approach is identified as Approach I.
As it can be seen in Figure 5.59, the estimations can be considered satisfactory for most of the time
window analyzed. Only between t=22s and t=23s the estimated load did not follow accurately the trend
of the original loads. This happens because, when considering the total load after the analyzed interval
as the reference value Pprod , the method "understands" that there was a total load increase from t=20s
to t=25s. However, between t=22s and t=23s what happens is a momentary decrease, which is not
properly "seen" by the method. If instead Pprod is updated continuously, the accuracy of the load power
estimations increases. Considering Pprod updated at every 2s, the results can be seen in Figure 5.60,
identified as Approach II. However, this demands a knowledge of a total load power at time intervals
smaller than the time window analyzed, which is not always practical.
With the same approach used in Subsection 5.4.2 to estimate together the trend of the equivalent
mechanical power and the losses, the equivalent moving power of Area 2 was composed, with results
presented in Figure 5.61. Referring to the legend, Pmovsim is the output signal of the simulator and
Pmovest refers is estimated quantity.
Figure 5.62 presents the estimated inertia of both areas 1 and 2, obtained with a sliding time window
of 5s. Starting from Area 1, as it can be seen the inertia was accurately estimated in comparison to the
expected value (H1 = 6.5s). It can be concluded that the load variations imposed in Area 2 produced
variations of power and frequency high enough for the methods studied to perform as expected. Hence,

130
 5.5. Normal load variation studies

3.5

3.48

Power (p.u.) 3.46

3.44

3.42

3.4
Ploads
3.38 Pl
est

3.36
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Time (s)

Figure 5.59: Study 12 - Approach I - Load estimation

3.5

3.48

3.46
Power (p.u.)

3.44

3.42

3.4
Ploads
3.38 Pl
est

3.36
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Time (s)

Figure 5.60: Study 12 - Approach II - Load estimation

it can be said that the MEM are able to estimate inertia following normal load variations when generators
are individually monitored.
Regarding the estimation of the inertia of Area 2, it can be seen in Figure 5.62(a) that the estimation
using Approach I was quite close to the expected values (estimated HA2r = 16.38) from t=20s to
approximately t=23s. Later, the accuracy decreased following the mismatches on the estimated moving
power presented in Figure 5.61(a). After t=25s, there are no load variations and the inertia estimated is
influenced by the controllers of the grid. With Approach II, the reference inertia estimated HA2r = 16.43
did not deviate from the result obtained with Approach I, but the difference is after t=23s. The continuous

131
Chapter 5. Numerical results

-0.8
-0.74

-0.82 -0.76 Pmov

sim
-0.78 Pmov
-0.84 est
-0.8
Power (p.u.)

Power (p.u.)
-0.86 -0.82

-0.84
-0.88
-0.86

-0.9 Pmov -0.88

sim
-0.9
-0.92 Pmov
est -0.92

-0.94 -0.94
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Time (s) Time (s)

(a) Approach I (b) Approach II

Figure 5.61: Study 12 - Moving powers estimated of Area 2

update of Pprod improved the estimations for the remaining time interval analyzed.

40 40
HA1 HA1
35 35
HA2 HA2
30 30

25 25

20 18.85 20 18.85
Inertia(s)

Inertia(s)

15 HA2 =16.38 15 HA2 =16.43

r r

10 10
6.5 6.5
5 5

0 0

-5 -5

-10 -10
15 20 25 30 35 15 20 25 30 35
Time(s) Time(s)

(a) Approach I (b) Approach II

Figure 5.62: Study 12 - Inertias estimated

Therefore, the conclusion that can be made for the use of the MEM for estimating the equivalent
inertia of an area following normal load variations inside the area is that the method works, but is strongly
dependent on monitoring or estimating the equivalent moving power. By monitoring the equivalent
moving power, it can be understood by whether monitoring the loads whether the generators (what falls
in the case of Area 1, which works well without further limiations). By estimating the equivalent moving
power, the accuracy of the method is dependent on how often there is information about the total load
of the area. This is a strong requirement when monitoring an area nowadays, where this information
may be dependent on SCADA in most systems. Therefore, the topic has room for further studies on load
behaviour estimation methods that could relax this requirement and make the proposed method more
practical.

132
 5.5. Normal load variation studies

5.5.1.1 Conclusions of Study 12

In this study, the MEM were tested together with the moving power estimation method presented in
Section 4.2.5.3 for estimating inertia following normal load variations. The MEM performed well, as it
could be seen for the individually monitored generator of Area 1, such that it is possible to state that the
methods studied work also in ambient conditions.
However, when dealing with equivalent areas with loads inside, the method strongly depends on
the moving power estimation, which may decrease the accuracy of the estimations. Analyzing a time
window of 5s with loads varying at every second, two approaches were considered. A first approach
considered the knowledge of the total load of the area after the time window is concluded, which is a
practical assumption. This approach produces acceptable estimations of inertia in the first seconds of the
analyzed time window, degrading after it. A second approach considered the knowledge of the total load
at every 2.5s, which improved the estimations. The conclusion is that, to estimate the inertia of the area
containing the loads, not necessarily the loads must be individually monitored, but the accuracy of the
estimations are dependant on how often there is knowledge of a total load of the area.

5.5.2 Study 13 - Dynamic matrix method

In this study, the method proposed in Section 4.2.6 is evaluated. To provide the data, the Test-system
E is simulated in Matlab. The multi-machine system is represented with the second-order model in the
COI frame, as proposed in [35], [162].

• Test-system used: Test-system E, presented in Section D.5;

• Simulation software: Euler numerical integration method as proposed in [41], implemented in

Matlab;

• Perturbations simulated: normal load variation;

• Model used for the synch. machines: second-order model referred to the COI frame, according to
Equation (4.76);

• Machine parameters: according to the test;

• Model of the loads: constant impedance;

• Losses: considered;

• Controllers: not implemented;

• Sampling time: 20ms.

To apply the method, the admittance matrix of the system is required, as well as voltage and cur-
rents at the terminals of each generator. Moreover, the outputs of a MEM are needed, i.e., rotor angles,
frequencies, transient reactances and a previous estimation of inertia. As seen in the previous sections,
the MEM performed well in every condition tested when the terminals of the generators were moni-
tored. Consequently, this Study will not contemplate again the performance of the MEMs. Instead, these
quantities will be assumed as known and the outputs of the simulator will be directly used, such that the
dynamic matrix method proposed in Section 4.2.6 can be evaluated individually.

133
Chapter 5. Numerical results

5.5.2.1 Test 1

For this test, the machine parameters presented in Table D.5 were simulated. In the simulation performed,
all the three loads varied randomly every 0.02s, with constant power factor and a standard deviation
σ = 0.1 around the base load. Figure 5.63 presents the load variations simulated, according to Equation
(4.75). The outputs of the simulation can be seen in Figure 5.64, where rotor angle and speeds are
presented in the COI frame.

0.4

Pload
0.3 1
Pload
0.2 2

Pload
0.1 3
Power (p.u.)

-0.1

-0.2

-0.3

-0.4
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Time (s)

Figure 5.63: Study 13 - Test 1 - Load behaviour simulated

0.2 0.08
~
0.06 3
0.15 ~
2
0.04 ~
0.1
1
0.02
0.05
[p.u.]
[rad]

0
~

0
-0.02
~
-0.05
1 -0.04
~
2
-0.1 ~ -0.06
3
-0.15 -0.08
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
time [s] time [s]

(a) Angles (b) Speeds

Figure 5.64: Study 13 - Test 1 - Simulations

The inertia is estimated through Equation (4.87), here repeated for convenience:

∂Pe
M=( )COI Cδδ C−1
ωω [s2 ]
∂ δ̃

If there is no load variation, the term ( ∂P e

)
∂ δ̃ COI
is constant and can be calculated through Equations
(C.20) to (C.23) as presented in Appendix C. As in this study normal load variations are considered,
( ∂P e
)
∂ δ̃ COI
varies around its base state, with no large excursions, since stable ambient conditions are
assumed. In the calculations, the previously estimated transient reactances and initial estimates of Mi

134
 5.5. Normal load variation studies

are needed. For this simulation,

" #
∂Pe 8.063 1.236
( )COI =
∂ δ̃ 2.815 5.084

Using a sliding time window of 200 samples (4s), the sample-weighted covariance matrices Qδk δj
and Qωk ωj can be calculated for the referred samples of rotor angles and rotor speeds. Hence, M is
calculated in function of the constant ( ∂P e
)
∂ δ̃ COI
and the window-based matrices Qδk δj and Qωk ωj . The
results for M1 and M2 can be seen in Figure 5.65, where the dashed red line represent the expected
value.

(a) Angles (b) Speeds

Figure 5.65: Study 13 - Test 1 - Estimated M1 and M2

M3 cannot be directly calculated from Equation (4.87) because the n−th generator is not represented
in the model adopted when the COI reference frame is used, as seen in Section 4.2.6. Hence, it is
estimated through Least-squares according to Equation (4.92), using the previous obtained M1 and M2 .
Results can be seen in Figure 5.66.

Figure 5.66: Study 13 - Test 1 - Estimated M3

As it can be seen in Figure 5.65, at every sample the estimation changed, but the average is very close

135
Chapter 5. Numerical results

to the expected value highlighted in red. Regarding M3 , the estimations varied with a higher standard
deviation, since M3 is calculated indirectly from the previously estimated M1 and M2 . But even with a
higher standard deviation, the average of the estimations is close to the expected constant of inertia also
for Generator 3, as it can be seen in Figure 5.66.
The simulation is performed again five times, with the same standard deviation and sampling time for
the load variation. The results can be seen in Table 5.16, where the columns "Sim 1" to "Sim 5" denote
everyone of the five simulations performed, and Mi denote the mean average of the estimated values of
the inertia of machine i.

Table 5.16: Study 13 - Test 1 - Results

Exact Sim 1 Sim 2 Sim 3 Sim 4 Sim 5

M1 0.63 0.6601 0.6549 0.6524 0.6435 0.6242
M2 0.34 0.3565 0.3560 0.3472 0.3446 0.3542
M3 0.16 0.1668 0.1596 0.1784 0.1705 0.1135

As it can be seen, M1 and M2 were accurately estimated according to the expected values in all the
simulations performed. The highest errors (in terms of the mean value) obtained are around 5% for both
generators. For Generator 3, however, the error is around 10% in the first four simulations, but reached
almost 30% in Simulation 5, since it is influenced by the propagated errors of M1 (t) and M2 (t). These
estimations of M3 (t) may be improved by the usage of weighted LS method, taken into consideration
the mean errors of M1 (t) and M2 (t).

5.5.2.2 Test 2

Further tests were performed changing the period of the load variations and changing the standard devi-
ation.
First the standard deviation was changed to 0.05, instead of 0.1 used in Test 1. The period of variation
of the loads was kept as 0.02s. The results can be seen in Table 5.17, identified by Test 2 - Case 1. Results
were similar to those obtained in Test 1 for M1 and M2 . For M3 the accuracy decreased in some of the
simulations.
At second, the standard deviation was kept as original (σ = 0.1) while the period of variation of the
load was changed. The simulations were performed considering a load change at every 0.1s, while data
was recorded at 0.02s. Results can be seen in Table 5.18, identified by Case 2. As it can be seen, all the
results did not deviate much from the results obtained in Test 1 (Table 5.16). The worst estimation of
M3 in Test 2 - Case 2 presented an error around 26%.
The period of load variation is increased once again, to 1s, and results are presented in Table 5.19,
identified as Case 3. As it can be seen, the accuracy degraded, ranging 100% of error. This happens
because the slow variation of the loads in comparison to the sampling rate of data acquisition interferes
in the calculations of the sample-weighted covariance matrices. Once the data is acquired faster, the
load does not vary for consecutive samples until it jumps abruptly. Hence, the covariance between two
samples may be very different, according to the samples considered, affecting the calculation of the final
entrances of the sampled matrices. Consequently, it can be said that the method fails to estimate inertia
following loads variations that are slow in comparison to the sampling data acquired.

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 5.5. Normal load variation studies

Table 5.17: Study 13 - Test 2 - Case 1

Exact Sim 1 Sim 2 Sim 3 Sim 4 Sim 5

M1 0.63 0.6294 0.6296 0.6349 0.6535 0.6646
M2 0.34 0.3645 0.3724 0.3622 0.3510 0.3487
M3 0.16 0.0954 0.0752 0.1104 0.1702 0.1948

Table 5.18: Study 13 - Test 2 - Case 2

Exact Sim 1 Sim 2 Sim 3 Sim 4 Sim 5

M1 0.63 0.6845 0.6689 0.6765 0.6868 0.6736
M2 0.34 0.3665 0.3653 0.3721 0.3598 0.3598
M3 0.16 0.1817 0.1588 0.1538 0.2023 0.1804

Table 5.19: Study 13 - Test 2 - Case 3

Exact Sim 1 Sim 2 Sim 3 Sim 4 Sim 5

M1 0.63 1.1148 1.1356 1.2551 1.2430 1.2089
M2 0.34 0.5773 0.6041 0.5630 0.6548 0.6649
M3 0.16 0.3531 0.3178 0.6101 0.3529 0.2746

5.5.2.3 Test 3

In this test, different constant of inertia were used in the simulations. The idea was to evaluate the method
with more cases, and also investigate the influence on the choice of the n-th generator which inertia will
be estimated depending on the others. Results are presented in Tables 5.20 to 5.22.
Regarding the estimations of M1 and M2 , the method performed similarly in every case, with max-
imum errors around 10%. Regarding M3 , the worst estimations were obtained in Case 2, where G3
played a bigger role in the inertia of the COI in comparison to the other two generators in the other cases
analyzed. Hence, it is possible to say that the smaller the inertia of G3 in comparison to the other two,
the smaller the errors in the estimations of M3 . So, when applying the method, selecting the smaller
generator as the n − th unit in the modelling is the best option.

Table 5.20: Study 13 - Test 3 - Case 1

Exact Sim 1 Sim 2 Sim 3 Sim 4 Sim 5

M1 1.26 1.3829 1.4245 1.1148 1.3804 1.3513
M2 0.68 0.7348 0.7817 0.5773 0.7527 0.7338
M3 0.32 0.3811 0.3282 0.1922 0.3310 0.3304

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Chapter 5. Numerical results

Table 5.21: Study 13 - Test 3 - Case 2

Exact Sim 1 Sim 2 Sim 3 Sim 4 Sim 5

M1 0.90 1.0300 1.0058 1.0701 0.9728 0.9914
M2 0.50 0.4899 0.4622 0.4716 0.5122 0.5160
M3 0.65 0.9947 1.0207 0.1503 0.7890 0.8227

Table 5.22: Study 13 - Test 3 - Case 3

Exact Sim 1 Sim 2 Sim 3 Sim 4 Sim 5

M1 0.50 0.5384 0.5638 0.5500 0.5198 0.5531
M2 0.50 0.5124 0.5024 0.4717 0.4900 0.5411
M3 0.50 0.6805 0.9013 0.9767 0.6842 0.6186

5.5.2.4 Conclusions of Study 13

In this study, the Test-System E was simulated considering normal load variations, and the method
presented in Section 4.2.6 was applied for estimating the inertia of the generators involved. The method
requires the knowledge of the topology, the monitoring of the generators and the outputs of a previously
performed MEM (transient reactances and an initial inertia estimation).
Recalling the procedure, due to modelling characteristics, the method estimates directly the inertia
of all generators but one. The estimation of the last generator is done indirectly, as a function of the
estimated inertia of the others. The accuracy of the estimations were evaluated in terms of the mean
value, such that the method performed well in every direct estimation. Regarding the indirect estimation,
the results depended much on the case tested. The best results were obtained when this selected generator
had a smaller role in comparison to the others in terms of inertia. A possible way to improve these
estimations is to assign weights to the inputs of the Least-Squares method, according to the magnitude
of the errors observed in the direct estimations.

5.6 Conclusion of the chapter

This chapter presented all the studies performed considering the methodologies proposed and Topics
defined in Chapter 4.
Section 5.1 presented preliminary results on the application of the direct LS method, showing its
limitations, and the MEMs, as solution. The Iterative-IME and the "Variance" methods were compared
considering the simple Test-sytems A and B. The perturbation considered was a generator disconnection,
and loads were represented in the constant impedance model and in the dynamic model (synchronous
generator), depending on the study. Considering PMUs installed at the terminal buses of generators, the
MEMs succeeded in estimating inertia in the cases tested.
Section 5.2 presented studies on inertia estimation considering area equivalents. The studies were
performed considering PMUs installed at the boundary buses of an area, and the equivalent inertia of
the area was evaluated in terms of the measurements available. The studies considered the presence of
the perturbation and the presence of loads inside the area, showing the limitations and the difficulties
of this type of study. It was observed that, when there is a perturbation and/or voltage-dependent loads

138
 5.6. Conclusion of the chapter

inside the area, the equivalent moving power of the area must be estimated or monitored (i.e., monitoring
individually loads or generators). Otherwise, the inertia estimated may be negative due to the violation
of the assumption of slow equivalent moving power in comparison to the active power generated. The
section also presented the results of the innovative methodology proposed in Section 4.2.4, that enables
the evaluation of equivalent inertia of an area in terms of more than one PMUs installed at the boundary
and at the internal of the studied area.
Section 5.3 presented studies considering the presence of RES. The connection of a wind-power
unit was considered as an event that can be evaluated and used to estimate the equivalent inertia of the
system. The simultaneous connection of a wind-power unit and disconnection of a synchronous unit
was also evaluated, with accurate results obtained. The section also analyzed, using a time window,
the further decrease in inertia due to the events considered. Therefore, it can be concluded that the
proposed methods are able to estimate inertia following the connection and disconnection of synchronous
or decoupled generators, and moreover are able to observe the change of inertia in time.
Section 5.4 presented two additional studies. First, the possibility of generating a controlled power
output signal to estimate the inertia was analyzed. Considering a Probe modelled as PQ constant load,
the studies showed that not only it is possible to estimate the inertia using the MEM studied, but it is
possible to have an idea of dimensioning the probe, evaluating the limits of accuracy of the method-
ology. At second, the section brought studies using the proposed "Moving power estimation method"
(proposed in Section 4.2.5.3). The method is complementary to the MEM because it enables area studies
with perturbations and loads inside, without the requirement of full observability. The simulations were
performed considering two different types of perturbation: short-circuits and load steps. The results
were obtained considering the constant impedance model for loads, since this model is voltage depen-
dent and this dependence was reportedly considered as the most contributor to load changes. The studies
can be extended to consider different models for loads, if the load parameters are known or previously
estimated.
Section 5.5 presented the results of two different studies considering inertia estimation under normal
load variations on the grid. The first study was performed considering the direct application of the MEM
to estimate the inertia. For the generator directly monitored, the method performed well. For equivalent
inertia estimation seen from a boundary bus, the method depends on the load behaviour estimation, that,
for continuous estimation of normal load variation, is dependent on how often there is information about
the total load of the area. The second study was performed with the "dynamic matrix method" presented
in Section 4.2.6. This method is complementary to the MEMs, since it needs their outputs from a
previous performed application. The performance of the method was evaluated in terms of the mean
average of the estimations obtained, with direct estimations with less than 10% of error. The indirect
estimation of the inertia of the n − th generator, however, presents higher errors due to its dependence
on the previously performed direct estimations.
Connecting all the studies performed, some general observations can be made. To estimate the equiv-
alent inertia of an area containing a perturbation and/or voltage dependent loads, one of the following
options is needed: whether monitoring the generators independently, whether monitoring the equivalent
moving power of the area, whether estimating the moving power of the area. Estimating the moving
power of the area depends on how much information the TSO has on the loads of the area under study,
such as an estimation of the total load of the area and the load characteristics. The inertia of the COI of
an area may be estimated from the terminal buses of all generators, but also from a boundary bus with a

139
Chapter 5. Numerical results

PMU installed. Regarding the latter, the estimation improves if more PMUs are available inside the area.
To summarize, the chapter presented many different studies, considering perturbations such as gen-
erator disconnections, connection of RES units, short-circuits and load steps. The simulations were
performed considering different representations for the loads, using the dynamic model, the constant
impedance model and the constant PQ model, depending on the study. The studies presented the results
of the methodologies proposed and brought innovative insights on inertia estimation in areas defined by
PMUs available.

140
 CHAPTER 6
Conclusions

T
his thesis focused on estimating inertia using WAMS. Recently, the equivalent inertia of modern
power systems have been degrading with the increasing penetration of RES, such that assessing
this parameter in real-time is a necessity for TSOs. At present, no method for inertia estimation
has arose as definitive. This Chapter presents and discusses conclusions about the methods and cases
studied, highlighting the results obtained, the challenges identified and the needs for future studies.

6.1 General conclusions

This section presents the conclusions of this thesis divided in three different subsections.
First, Subsection 6.1.1 presents the conclusions regarding inertia estimation if generating units are
monitored individually. The application of the methods, the requirements and the results obtained are
commented both for inertia estimation following perturbations and following normal load variations.
At second, Subsection 6.1.2 debates the results obtained considering PMUs spread in the system,
not necessarily at generator terminals, monitoring areas from their boundaries and from buses inside.
This type of approach is new for the literature, where normally all the generating units are assumed as
monitored or at least the monitored area is assumed as coherent.
At last, the contributions of the studies with a probe and considering the connection of RES-based
generation are discussed in Subsection 6.1.3.
The studies were performed with different test-systems, ranging from 2 to 66 buses. Different models
for the synchronous machines were used, and also primary frequency control was considered, depend-
ing on the study. Loads were represented with constant PQ, constant Impedance and dynamic model

141
Chapter 6. Conclusions

(synchronous motor), also depending on the study. Different types of events were considered, such as
load steps, normal load variations, short-circuits, connection and disconnection of generator, etc. Also,
the possibility of using a testing probe was evaluated, and studies considering the presence of RES were
performed.

6.1.1 Considering generating units monitored individually

Considering this purpose, five different methods were studied to estimate inertia.
First, the Direct Least-Squares method was evaluated and the results obtained showed significant
limitations. The method requires the assumption of negligible difference between rotor angles and phase
angles measured by PMUs at terminal buses, which does not hold in most cases, as the transient reactance
is usually not negligible.
As an alternative, Model Estimation Methods (MEMs) were studied to overcome the limitations of
the previous method. The acronym MEMs was created due to the common objective of both the Iterative
Inter-area Model Estimation method (Iterative-IME) and the "Variance method": estimating the transient
reactance and building a second-order dynamic equivalent for the studied machine. With this aim, the
Iterative-IME method was developed adapting the work [16] (originally for oscillations) for the use with
perturbations in a novel iterative strategy, one of the contributions of this thesis. The method is able to
consider losses in the interconnected paths evaluated without increasing the number of PMUs required.
Accurate results were obtained in the cases tested, and the method showed to be useful for monitoring
the system considering perturbations and also normal load variations. The method showed robustness
to deal with complex test-systems, where both higher order models to represent synchronous machines
were adopted and primary frequency control was considered. The main limitation of the method is the
need of monitoring at least two points in a radial path.
The "Variance method" proposed in [34] was the second MEM studied, as an alternative to the
Iterative-IME method. The advantage of this method is the necessity of monitoring only one point.
Both MEM performed similarly in the cases tested. However, as both methods depend on different
assumptions to work, the results varied according to the case studied in terms of which method performed
better. In some cases the Iterative-IME outperformed the "Variance method", in some cases it happened
the opposite, such it was not possible to define the best of them.
The fourth method studied was the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), a prediction-correction method
that is based on assuming a model to represent a system, and calibrate it with the feedback provided
by measured variables in time. The model proposed in [22] was tested in this thesis under the same
conditions of the MEM. In the studies performed, the EKF did not performed well. It showed a strong
limitation to deal with more complex test-systems, when a higher order model was assumed for the
synchronous machines in comparison to the model adopted in the EKF. This flaw has already been
overcome in the literature by further approaches that model the problem differently and showed more
robustness. However, the different forms of modelling the problem are always limited in the amount of
information that the measurement units can provide. The variables and parameters to be estimated by the
method are more than the measurement model can provide direct feedback on, such that their estimation
depend on indirect updating. Moreover, it was observed a strong dependence of the EKF on the tuning
of the initial estimates and on the tuning of the process noise covariance matrix. These issues may not
be a problem when synchronous machines are individually monitored, but may become a significant
limitation to apply the method for area studies.

142
 6.1. General conclusions

The fifth method, referred in this thesis as "Dynamic matrix method", is proposed specifically for
estimating inertia under normal load variations. By stating the dynamic matrix and the Lyapunov equa-
tions of a stable equivalent system, it is possible to relate measured quantities and estimate parameters.
The methodology is based on [155] and [35], dealing with different applications. In this thesis, it was
adapted for inertia estimation in a novel approach. The requirements are the knowledge of the topology
of the system, a general characterization of the loads, and the parameters of the dynamic equivalents of
the generating units, which can be obtained by MEM. The method is able to estimate the inertia contin-
uously in the presence of normal load variations, without the necessity of monitoring directly the loads
nor estimating their dynamic behaviour.
To conclude, if the TSO is able to monitor individually each generating unit of its interest, then the
methods studied in this thesis seem to address most of the situations without any identified limitation,
considering perturbations, normal load variations (as showed in this thesis) or oscillations, as showed in
[17].

6.1.2 Considering PMUs monitoring an area

Monitoring every generating bus of the grid is quite a strong assumption. As described in Section 3.6,
the deployment of PMUs is still in starting condition in many countries. For this reason, the possibility
of estimating equivalent inertias seen from spread PMUs installed on the grid was evaluated. At the
moment, this may be the only possibility to evaluate inertia of isolated or poorly monitored regions. This
subsection summarizes the conclusions of the studies performed on this topic.
The preliminary studies on this topic started with the assumption of monitoring two areas intercon-
nected by a radial path, with PMUs installed at their boundary buses. For this purpose, the MEM were
used to estimate the dynamic equivalent of each area, that consists on estimating the equivalent of the
transient reactance and the equivalent of the internal voltage in time. Subsequently, the method states the
swing equation with the equivalent generators and estimate the equivalent inertias through Least-Squares
(LS) method. In this step, it was assumed that the equivalent moving power of the studied area has a
slow behaviour in relation to the generated power.
The first issue that comes with monitoring an area with non coherent units by a single boundary bus
regards estimations biased by the electrical distance between the PMU and the generators. The generator
that is located closer to the PMU influences the equivalent frequency obtained and consequently influ-
ences the estimation of the inertia. Hence, the frequency and inertia obtained do not represent accurately
the dynamics of the COI of the area. In this case, one may make use of the data coming from additional
PMUs possibly installed in the considered area to acquire a better picture of the COI once the measure-
ment points are spread enough among the non-coherent groups of generators. To build the complete
equivalent, considering the equivalent interconnection lines between the measurement points, a system
reduction method was studied.
To reduce the system around the measurement points, the Ward equivalent method was adopted.
With this method, it is possible to evaluate an area with more than one interconnections to other areas,
monitored by its boundaries, and/or by measurement points inside the area. The method consists in
calculating equivalent interconnections and equivalent current injections between the buses selected.
From that point on, the "Variance method" is applied to calculate each of the dynamic equivalents seen
from the retained buses. Later, the equivalents of one area can be associated together in terms of their
COI, giving a picture of the equivalent dynamics of the whole area.

143
Chapter 6. Conclusions

However, the main issues that come with area equivalents regard the study of an area that contains
a perturbation inside and/or loads with high voltage-dependence. In this case, the assumption of slow
moving power used to solve the swing equation in practical conditions does not hold, and the inertia
estimated may result negative. To overcome this problem in this thesis, a method for estimating the
equivalent moving power of an area was proposed. The method is based on dividing this task in two:
estimating the equivalent load behaviour first, and then estimating the equivalent mechanical power of
the connected units together with the losses in the system.
The equivalent load behaviour is estimated assuming a load model to represent it. In this thesis,
the constant impedance model was selected because it is the one with higher voltage dependence, the
characteristic that was most affecting the inertia estimation of the area. However, it is possible to consider
a composite model if the TSO knows properly the historical characteristics of the load in the area of study,
or by estimating it using methods available in the literature such as [153], [154]. Once the load behaviour
is estimated, the remaining part of the equivalent moving power can be estimated based on steady-state
values of the generated power and typical values of the droop of the area. The method was tested for a
load step and produced satisfactory results. For monitoring normal load variations, however, the method
needs to be updated from time to time with the information of the total load of the area. The accuracy
depends on how often this information is available.
To summarize, performing area studies with PMUs require to monitor the boundaries of the area,
because the power generated is a needed input for the methods studied. If the monitored area neither
include a perturbation nor high voltage-dependent loads, then the MEMs perform well without additional
difficulties. However, if it includes one of these two elements, further additional requirements are needed.
The dynamic behaviour of the loads and the perturbation influences on the moving power of the area, that
cannot be assumed slow in comparison to the generated power. Hence, it is required to either monitor
individually the generators, monitor the loads, filter out the load behaviour or estimate the equivalent
moving power. The latter is an attempt of mitigating the requirements to monitor the inertia of an area
in the most practical conditions. However, the problems of estimating the moving power are basically
two: it also has its own required inputs, and it conditions the accuracy of the inertia estimations to the
accuracy of the equivalent moving power estimations.
Therefore, the minimum set of PMUs to estimate the inertia of an area in general (without making
assumptions) should include units at the boundaries to monitor the power generated, one or more PMUs
close to the COI of the area to enable accurate estimations of the mean frequency, and one or more PMUs
installed at load or transfer buses to estimate the load behaviour.

6.1.3 Application studies

The studied methods were tested with two different applications. The first one considered the presence
of RES-based generation in the system. The second application was resumed in testing the possibilities
of estimating inertia using a controlled probe.
Regarding the studies with RES, the connection of a wind-power generator was considered as an
event that impacts the system such that its dynamic response can be used to estimate the inertia of the
rest of the system. The methods proposed performed well in most of the cases tested, and moreover it
was possible to observe the inertia decrease due to the disconnection of a synchronous generator fol-
lowing the connection of the wind-power generator. The only case when the methods were not able to
estimate inertia was the case when the connected wind-power unit was connected generating exactly the

144
 6.2. Future studies

same active and reactive power of the synchronous unit disconnected. In this case, no power imbal-
ance was produced and no possibility to observe a frequency change. However, this is quite extreme
and unrealistic, because wind-power generators generate and consume reactive power differently then
synchronous machines. Even a small imbalance in the reactive power generated was already enough to
force the connected machines to react and consequently produce also a small active power imbalance,
that could be observed and used to estimate the inertia of the system.
The studies with the probe were performed modelling it as a constant PQ load. As in the previous
studies, the MEM performed well to estimate equivalent inertia. For the test-system used, the experiment
was taken to the limit of accuracy of the simulation software, giving an idea on how to size a probe for
practical use. In this case, the minimum magnitude of the power produced by the probe should be at least
10 times over the magnitude of the error of the PMU monitoring the area.

6.2 Future studies

This thesis presents some methods to estimate power system inertia according to some conditions and
assumptions. However, the work highlighted some research topics worth to be further investigated.
The first topic approaches operational aspects of the application of the methods with real data. Further
studies are needed to investigate different levels and types of measurement errors, presence of outliers
and missing data. Some of the techniques that may bring advantages are filtering, re-sampling and
interpolation. When dealing with perturbations, filtering could be investigated to eliminate the impact
of load variations in the power imbalance of the area, such that estimating the equivalent load behaviour
would not be necessary.
Considering the MEM, defining specific criteria to set the sliding window lengths and selecting the
representative estimations of the estimate transient reactance may improve the accuracy of the dynamic
equivalents and consequently the accuracy of the equivalent inertias estimated. Methods that detect the
presence and estimate the exact time of occurrence of a perturbation seem also useful to improve the
accuracy, besides the MEM can also work without this feature. When using the equivalent moving
power method to deal with normal load variations, methods and criteria to determine the time interval of
analysis and update the inputs are indispensable for practical applications.
A second topic is to improve specifically some of the models and methodologies. Further studies on
modelling and estimating load behaviour may bring benefits for estimating the equivalent moving power,
in terms of increasing accuracy and reducing requirements. Regarding the "dynamic matrix method",
there is room for improvement on the way the method estimates the inertia of the n − th generator, as in
this thesis it is done indirectly depending on the inertia estimations of the other generators. Furthermore,
another interesting study with this method would be evaluating its performance for estimating inertia
considering equivalent areas instead of monitoring individually the generators. Also, the method have
strong requirements, and further studies to mitigate them may be interesting to make it more practical.
The same can be said about the requirements of the moving power estimation method, that can have
benefit also from a whole study on load characterization and load behaviour estimation from boundary
buses.
Another topic for future investigations is estimating equivalent inertia in a system capable of pro-
viding synthetic inertia. A possible study includes modelling these units and evaluating the proposed
methods for estimating inertia in that situation.

145
Appendices

147
 APPENDIX A
Power and energy generated in Europe

149
151
Figure A.1: Power generated, Denmark, 23/08/2019, [7]
Appendix A. Power and energy generated in Europe

152
Figure A.2: Energy generated and consumed, Italy, 23/08/2019, [9]
 APPENDIX B
Details of the ”Variance method”

This Appendix details the passage from Step 1 to Step 2 of the "Variance method" (presented in Section
4.2.2.2).

Recalling Equation (4.28) for convenience,

Ei (t)∠δi (t) = (jxi )Ii (t)∠αi (t) + Vi (t)∠θi (t) (B.1)

The aim is to obtain |Ei | in terms of only measured (or calculable) quantities. For the sake of
simplicity, for now on in this Appendix, the subscript i is not shown.
Expressing the right side of Equation (B.1) in rectangular coordinates,

π π
E∠δ = xI[cos(α + ) + jsin(α + )] + V [cos(θ) + j sin(θ)] (B.2)
2 2

or alternatively

π π
E∠δ = [xI cos(α + ) + V cos(θ)] + j[xI sin(α + ) + V sin(θ)] (B.3)
2 2

Taking the magnitude of E∠δ, Equation (B.3) becomes

r
π π
E = [xI cos(α + ) + V cos(θ)]2 + [xI sin(α + ) + V sin(θ)]2 (B.4)
2 2

153
Appendix B. Details of the "Variance method"

The explicit version of Equation (B.4) is

r
π π
E= [x2 I 2 cos2 (α + ) + V 2 cos2 (θ) + 2xV I cos(α + ) cos(θ)]+
2 2
π π
[x2 I 2 sin2 (α + ) + V 2 sin2 (θ) + 2xV I sin(α + ) sin(θ)] (B.5)
2 2

Using the relation sin2 (a) + cos2 (a) = 1, it is possible to simplify Equation (B.5), obtaining
r
π π
E = x2 I 2 + V 2 + 2xV I[cos(α + ) cos(θ) + sin(α + ) sin(θ)] (B.6)
2 2

Using the relations cos(a + π2 ) = − sin(a) and sin(a + π2 ) = cos(a), Equation (B.6) becomes
p
E= x2 I 2 + V 2 + 2xV I[−sin(α) cos(θ) + cos(α) sin(θ)] (B.7)

Using the relation sin(a − b) = cos(b) sin(a) − cos(a) sin(b), Equation (B.7) can be rewritten as
p
E= x2 I 2 + V 2 + 2xV I[− sin(α − θ)] (B.8)

Making use of the property sin(−a) = − sin(a), it is possible to obtain

p
E= x2 I 2 + V 2 + 2xV I[sin(θ − α)] (B.9)

or, alternatively
p
E= x2 I 2 + V 2 + 2xQ (B.10)

where Q = V I sin(θ − α).

154
 APPENDIX C
Additional details of the Dynamic matrix method

This Appendix provides additional details on the Dynamic matrix method, presented in Section 4.2.6.

C.1 System reduction

Figures C.1 and C.2 depict the procedure, considering a test-system of 9 buses as an example.

Figure C.1: System reducing - Step 1

155
Appendix C. Additional details of the Dynamic matrix method

Regarding Diagram 1, the Ybus can be built in terms of the 9 admittances (YA to YI ) related to
the 9 transmission lines that connect the 9 buses of the system. The Step 1 consists in expanding the
representation of the system to include the loads, here modelled as constant admittances (YM to YO ) and
the transient reactances (here represented by the admittances YJ to YL ). Note that three fictitious buses
(buses 10 to 12) were added to represent the internal nodes of each generator. Consequently, the Ybus
related to Diagram 2 is (12 × 12).

Figure C.2: System reducing - Step 2

Step 2 consists in using the Ward reduction method (as presented in Section 4.2.4) to reduce the
system around the retained internal nodes of the generators (buses 10 to 12). The related Ybus becomes
(3 × 3). The interested reader may refer to [46].

C.2 From the infinite bus reference frame to the COI reference frame
The following deduction is based on [156].
A system with i synchronous machines represented with the classical model considering the infinite
bus as reference for angle and speed can be represented by


 M1 ω̇1 = Pm1 − Pe1 − D1 ω1






 M2 ω̇2
 = Pm2 − Pe2 − D2 ω2



 ..
.





Mi ω̇i = Pmi − Pei − Di ωi


dωi (t)
where ω̇i = dt and Mi = 2Hi /ω0 . All the variables have been previously defined in Chapter 2.
Summing up all the i equations of the System (C.1), it is possible to obtain

i
X i
X
Mj ω̇j = Pmj − Pej − Dj ωj (C.1)
j=1 j=1

156
 C.2. From the infinite bus reference frame to the COI reference frame

The left hand side of Equation C.1 can be expressed in terms of the COI. For that, Equation (2.18) is
expressed here in terms of M and considering the same base power for each generator, for simplicity:
Pi
j=1 Mj ωj
ωCOI , Pi (C.2)
j=1 Mj

Pi Pi
Calling MT = j=1 Mj , the term j=1 Mj ω̇j can be exchanged for MT ω̇COI . Defining PCOI =
Pi
j=1 Pmj − Pej , Equation (C.1) becomes

i
X
MT ω̇COI = PCOI − Dj ωj (C.3)
j=1

Pi
For the next step, the term j=1 Dj ωj is multiplied by Mj /Mj :

i
X Mj
MT ω̇COI = PCOI − D j ωj (C.4)
j=1
Mj

Considering that the proportion in between inertia and damping of each single machine is the same
of the proportion in between the total inertia and damping of the system [156], it is possible to write

Dj DT
= (C.5)
Mj MT
Pi
where DT = j=1 Dj and the other variables have been previously defined.
Substituting Equation (C.5) in Equation (C.4), it is possible to obtain

i
X DT ωj Mj
MT ω̇COI = PCOI − (C.6)
j=1
MT

Pi D ω M
The term j=1 TMjT j can be expressed in terms of ωCOI through Equation (C.2), such that the
expression that represents the dynamics of the COI is

MT ω̇COI = PCOI − DT ωCOI (C.7)

Alternatively,
PCOI DT ωCOI
ω̇COI = − (C.8)
MT MT
Each of the equations of the System (C.1) can then be referred to the COI. Considering ω̃i = ωi −
ωCOI , it is possible to obtain

Pmi − Pei Di ωi PCOI DT ωCOI

ω̇i − ω̇COI = − − + (C.9)
Mi Mi MT MT
Making use of Equation (C.5), it is possible to rewrite Equation (C.9) as

Mi
Mi ω̃˙ i = Pmi − Pei − PCOI − Di ω̃i (C.10)
MT

157
Appendix C. Additional details of the Dynamic matrix method

C.3 Expressing the motion of the n-th generator in function of the oth-
ers
This section provides details of the deductions in between Equations (4.67) and (4.72).
The COI angle and the COI frequency (here repeated by convenience) can be obtained respectively
with
Pn
Sni Mi δi
δCOI , Pi=1
i
rad (C.11)
i=1 Sni Mi
Pn
Sni Mi ωi
ωCOI , Pi=1
i
rad/s (C.12)
i=1 Sni Mi

All the rotor angles and speed of the system can be expressed by δ̃i = δi −δCOI and ω̃i = ωi −ωCOI .
Considering an example with three generators, from (C.11),

Sn1 M1 δ1 + Sn2 M2 δ2 + Sn3 M3 δ3

δCOI = (C.13)
Sn1 M1 + Sn2 M2 + Sn3 M3
Subsequently, it is possible to write

δCOI (Sn1 M1 + Sn2 M2 + Sn3 M3 ) = Sn1 M1 δ1 + Sn2 M2 δ2 + Sn3 M3 δ3 (C.14)

Using the relation δ̃i = δi − δCOI , it can be obtained

Sn1 M1 δ˜1 + Sn2 M2 δ˜2 + Sn3 M3 δ˜3 = 0 (C.15)

From which it is possible to isolate δ˜3 and obtain

Sn M1 δ˜1 + Sn2 M2 δ˜2

δ˜3 = − 1 (C.16)
Sn3 M3
Making it general,
Pn−1
k=1 Mk δ̃k
δ̃n = − (C.17)
Mn
The same procedure can be done for ω̃n , obtaining
Pn−1
k=1 Mk ω̃k
ω̃n = − (C.18)
Mn

C.4 Derivatives of the linearized system

This section provides the deductions of the derivatives that appear in Equation (4.79). Recalling the
expression,
∂Pe ∂Pe 1 ∂PCOI
( )COI = ( +M ) (C.19)
∂ δ̃ ∂ δ̃ MT ∂ δ̃
The variables involved are δ̃ = [δ̃1 , ..., δ̃n−1 ], while δ̃n is substituted in the expressions of Pe and
PCOI according to Equation (4.71). Consequently, each one of the partial derivatives of ( ∂P e
)
∂ δ̃ COI
can

158
 C.4. Derivatives of the linearized system

be obtained by Equations (C.20) to (C.23), where k, j = 1, ..., n − 1.

n
∂Pe COI ∂Pek Mk X ∂Pei
( )kk = + (C.20)
∂ δ̃ ∂ δ̃k MT i=1 ∂ δ̃k

n
∂Pe COI ∂Pek Mk X ∂Pei
( )kj = + (C.21)
∂ δ̃ ∂ δ̃j MT i=1 ∂ δ̃j

n
∂Pe COI ∂Pej Mj X ∂Pei
( )jk = + (C.22)
∂ δ̃ ∂ δ̃k MT i=1 ∂ δ̃k

n
∂Pe COI ∂Pej Mj X ∂Pei
( )jj = + (C.23)
∂ δ̃ ∂ δ̃j MT i=1 ∂ δ̃j

As PCOI is a function of Pei with i = 1, ..., n as seen in Equation (4.70), the partial derivative of Pen
∂Pei
is also needed. Hence, considering only the non-zero terms, each one of the terms ∂ δ̃j
can be calculated
as

n−1
∂Pek X ∂Pkj ∂Pkn
= + (C.24)
∂ δ̃k j=1,j6=i
∂ δ̃k ∂ δ̃k

∂Pej ∂Pjk ∂Pjn

= + (C.25)
∂ δ̃k ∂ δ̃k ∂ δ̃k

n−1
∂Pen ∂Pnk X ∂Pnj
= + (C.26)
∂ δ̃k ∂ δ̃k j=1,j6=i
∂ δ̃k

Explicitly,

n−1
∂Pek X
= Ek Ej (Gkj (− sin(δ̃k − δ̃j )) + Bkj cos(δ̃k − δ̃j ))+
∂ δ̃k j=1,j6=i
Pn−1 Pn−1
l=1 Ml δ̃l Mk Ml δ̃l Mk
Ek En (Gkn (− sin(δ̃k + ))(1 + ) + Bkn cos(δ̃k + l=1 )(1 + ))
Mn Mn Mn Mn

∂Pej
=Ej Ek (Gjk (+ sin(δ̃j − δ̃k )) − Bkj cos(δ̃j − δ̃k ))+
∂ δ̃k
Pn−1 Pn−1
l=1 Ml δ̃l Mk Ml δ̃l Mk
l=1
Ej En (Gjn (− sin(δ̃j + ))( ) + Bjn cos(δ̃j + )( ))
Mn Mn Mn Mn

Pn−1
∂Pen Ml δ̃l
l=1 Mk
=[En Ek (Gnk (− sin((− ) − δ̃k ))(− − 1)+
∂ δ̃k Mn Mn

159
Appendix C. Additional details of the Dynamic matrix method

Pn−1
Ml δ̃l
l=1 Mk
Bnk cos((− ) − δ̃k )(− − 1))]+
Mn Mn
n−1 Pn−1
X Ml δ̃l Mk
[ En Ej (Gnj (− sin((− l=1 ) − δ̃j ))(− )+
i=1
Mn Mn
Pn−1
Ml δ̃l Mk
Bnj cos((− l=1 ) − δ̃j )(− ))]
Mn Mn

C.5 Application example - Calculation of the Jacobian

This section presents the calculation of the matrix ( ∂P e
)
∂ δ̃ COI
for Study 13 (Subsection 5.5.2). Test-
system D.5 is used.

C.5.1 Main parameters of the system

The full data of the system can be found in [46] and in https://github.com/xiaozhew/Jacobian-
Estimation. The full admittance matrix can be found in [46].
The transient reactances of each generator are x1 = 0.0608p.u., x2 = 0.1198p.u., x3 = 0.1813p.u..
The admittance matrix reduced around the three internal nodes of the generators (hence including x1 ,
x2 , and x3 ) is
 
0.8455 − 2.9883i 0.2871 + 1.5129i 0.2096 + 1.2256i
red
 
Ybus =
0.2871 + 1.5129i 0.4200 − 2.7239i 0.2133 + 1.0879i

0.2096 + 1.2256i 0.2133 + 1.0879i 0.2770 − 2.3681i

The results of a performed power flow are E1 = 1.0566p.u., E2 = 1.0502p.u., E3 = 1.0170p.u.,

δ1 = 0.0396rad, δ2 = 0.3444rad, δ3 = 0.2298rad.
The inertias of the three generators considered in the referred study were M1 = 0.63s2 , M2 =
0.34s2 , M3 = 0.16s2 , MT = M1 + M2 + M3 = 1.13s2 .
Applying Equation (C.11), δCOI = 0.1582rad. Hence, the relative angles are δ̃1 = −0.1188rad,
δ̃2 = 0.1859rad, δ̃3 = 0.0713rad.
The rotor speed in steady state are ω1 = ω2 = ω3 = 1rad/s. Hence, applying Equation (C.12),
ωCOI = 1, and ω̃1 = ω̃2 = ω̃3 = 0rad/s.

C.5.2 Calculation of the partial Jacobian

As the system has three generators, the matrix ( ∂P e
)
∂ δ̃ COI
is (n − 1 × n − 1) = 2x2.
To obtain ( ∂P e COI
)
∂ δ̃ 11
, Equation (C.20) must be applied:

∂Pe COI ∂Pe1 M1 ∂Pe1 ∂Pe2 ∂Pe3

( )11 = − ( + + ) = 8.0627
∂ δ̃ ∂ δ̃1 M T ∂ δ̃1 ∂ δ̃1 ∂ δ̃1
∂Pe1 ∂Pe2 ∂Pe3
where the results of the individual terms are: ∂ δ̃1
= 8.2924, ∂ δ̃1
= 2.9387 and ∂ δ̃1
= −10.8191.
To obtain ( ∂P e COI
)
∂ δ̃ 12
, Equation (C.21) must be applied:

∂Pe COI ∂Pe1 M1 ∂Pe1 ∂Pe2 ∂Pe3

( )12 = − ( + + ) = 1.2361
∂ δ̃ ∂ δ̃2 M T ∂ δ̃2 ∂ δ̃2 ∂ δ̃2

160
 C.5. Application example - Calculation of the Jacobian

∂Pe1 ∂Pe2 ∂Pe3

where te results of the individual terms are ∂ δ̃2
= 1.1415, ∂ δ̃2
= 5.0333 and ∂ δ̃2
= −6.3445.
To obtain ( ∂P e COI
)
∂ δ̃ 21
, Equation (C.22) must be applied:

∂Pe COI ∂Pe2 M2 ∂Pe1 ∂Pe2 ∂Pe3

( )21 = − ( + + ) = 2.8147
∂ δ̃ ∂ δ̃1 M T ∂ δ̃1 ∂ δ̃1 ∂ δ̃1

where all the individual terms have been previously calculated.

To obtain ( ∂P e COI
)
∂ δ̃ 22
, Equation (C.22) must be applied:

∂Pe COI ∂Pe2 M2 ∂Pe1 ∂Pe2 ∂Pe3

( )22 = − ( + + ) = 5.0844
∂ δ̃ ∂ δ̃2 MT ∂ δ̃2 ∂ δ̃2 ∂ δ̃2

where all the individual terms have been previously calculated.

Hence, the final matrix is
" #
∂Pe 8.063 1.236
( )COI =
∂ δ̃ 2.815 5.084

161
 APPENDIX D
Test Systems

D.1 Test-system A
Description: Radial 2-bus test-system, 2 generators, 1 load.

Figure D.1: Test-system A

D.2 Test-system B
Description: Radial 2-bus test-system.

Figure D.2: Test-system B

163
Appendix D. Test Systems

D.3 Test-system C
Description: Original 11-bus test-system from [42]. The installed capacity is around 3250 MW.

Figure D.3: Test-system C

Each transformer has an impedance of j0.15 p.u. on 900 MVA and 20/230 kV base. The parameters
of the lines are r = 0.0001 p.u./km, xL = 0.001 p.u./km and bC = 0.00175 p.u./km, on 100 MVA, 230
kV base.
The loads are as follows:

Table D.1: Test-system C - Loads, [42]

PL [MW] QL [Mvar] Qc [Mvar]

Bus 7 967 100 200
Bus 9 1767 100 350

The generator parameters are as follows:

Table D.2: Test-system C - Machine parameters, [42]

H [s] D S [MVA] cos(φ)

G1 6.5 0 900 0.9
G2 6.5 0 900 0.9
G3 6.175 0 900 0.9
G4 6.175 0 900 0.9

All the other parameters and original data can be found in [42].

164
 D.4. Test-system D

D.4 Test-system D
Description: 66-bus test-system from [161].
The system consists on 66 buses, 16 generators and 51 transmission lines, divided in three meshed
areas. The weak ties (due to long transmission lines interconnecting the areas) make the system useful
for stability studies. It has been developed based on benchmark values of the European interconnected
system. The installed capacity is around 15.93 GW and the total demand is 15.57 MW.

Table D.3: Test-system D - Machine parameters

Gen. H [s] S [MVA] cos(φ)

A1ag 7,590002 1100 0,95
A1bG 7,590002 1100 0,95
A2aG 7,590002 1100 0,95
A2bG 7,590002 1100 0,95
A3G 3,036001 440 0,95
A6G 3,457999 494 0,98
B2aG 13,5975 1295 0,95
B2bG 13,5975 1295 0,95
B3G 24,4755 2331 0,95
B8G 6,915998 988 0,98
B10G 10,878 1036 0,95
C7G 10,374 1482 0,98
C2G 10,374 1482 0,98
C10G 6,915998 988 0,98
C12G 8,644997 1235 0,98
C14G 6,915998 988 0,98

165
 A1aG A1bG A2aG A2bG A3G
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
SG SG SG SG SG
A1a A1b A2a A2b A3a B2aG B2bG B3G
~ ~ ~
SG SG SG
A1b 2T
A1a 2T A3 2T
A2a 2T A2b 2T
B2a B2b B3a
A1
A2 A3

B3 2T
A1-A2
B2a 2T B2b 2T
A1-A4

A2-A5a A2-A3
A2-A5b

A4-A5a
A4 A5a B1 B2 B3
B2-B3
B1-B2
A4 3T Tie line A-C A5b Tie line A-B
A5a-A5b
A4a A6G
~ A5a-A7a A5b-A7a B1 3T B2 3T
SG
B1a B2c
A6a B3 3T
B2c-B5 B2c-B6

B1a-B7
A7 A7 3T B1a-B4 B3b
A7a B2c-B4
TCSC_1 A6 2T A6-A7 B5 B6
TCSC_Capacitor

B7 B4
TCSC_Inductor

B8

B5-B9
B8a
A6 B7-B8
TCSC Bypass B8G B8 2T
B3b-B6 B3b-B11

SG
C7G

~
B8-B9
TCSC_2 ~ B9
SG
A6 3T

Tie line B-C

B10-B11

B9-B10
A6b C7a
B11
C8 B9 3T
C7 2T B9a
C7-C8 B11 3T

166
Tie line A-C cont B10
C7 C8 3T
C4

B10 2T
C1-C7
C1 C8a B11a
C4-C7
C1-C2 C3-C4

C8a-C9
C2G C2 2T
B10a
SG
~

C2-C3 C3-C5

C6a-C8a
C6
C4-C6 SG
C2a ~
C9 B10G
C2 C3 C10
C9-C10
C10 2T C10a
C6 3T
Appendix D. Test Systems

C5-C6 C6a

SG
C5

~
C10G
C10-C11
C5 3T C6a-C15 C11
C18 C19 C5a C16 C11-C12 C12G
C12 2T
C15
C18-C19 C5a-C19 C5a-C16

SG
C14a-C16

~
C14-C15
C12-C13
C17-C18 C13 C12a
C14
C12
C17 C14a C14 3T C13-C14
C14a-C17
C14 2T
C14b
C14G SG
~
Figure D.4: Test-system D
 D.5. Test-system E

D.5 Test-system E
Description: WSCC test-system, [46].

Figure D.5: Test-system E

Test-system E - Machine parameters Test-system E - Load parameters

2
Gen. M[s ] D S [MVA] Bus S [MVA] V [kV] PL [p.u.] QL [p.u.]
G1 0.63 0.63 100 6 100 230 0.9 0.3
G2 0.34 0.34 100 8 100 230 1 0.35
G3 0.16 0.16 100 5 100 230 1.25 0.5

Table D.4: Test-system E - Line parameters

Line From To S [MVA] V [kV] r [p.u.Ω/Km] x [p.u. H/Km] b [p.u. F/Km]

1 9 8 100 230 0.0119 0.1008 0.209
2 7 8 100 230 0.0085 0.072 0.149
3 9 6 100 230 0.039 0.17 0.358
4 7 5 100 230 0.032 0.161 0.306
5 5 4 100 230 0.01 0.085 0.176
6 6 4 100 230 0.017 0.092 0.158
7 2 7 100 18 0 0.0625 0
8 3 9 100 13.8 0 0.0586 0
9 1 4 100 16.5 0 0.0576 0

Additional details are available at: https://github.com/xiaozhew/Jacobian-Estimation.

Accessed in 06/09/2019 at 16:17.

167
Appendix D. Test Systems

168
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