Monitoring voltage stability with real-time dynamics monitoring system (RTDMS®)

Monitoring and maintaining voltage stability in real-time is extremely important for operating a power system reliably. Inadequate voltage support was a contributing factor in several major blackouts in North America, including the 1996 Western Interconnection and the 2003 North East US /Canada blackout. The RTDMS enables monitoring of voltage stability over a wide area using SynchroPhasor technology. The high resolution data provided by synchrophasor technology is time-synchronized and the RTDMS provides for the wide area visualization of key metrics of the electric power grid across a wide area covering multiple control areas, including visualization using synchronized phasor measurements. The RTDMS application has the capability to monitor voltage stability over a wide area in real-time, enabling operators to quickly identify the location of voltage instability, and based on this information, operators can take corrective actions to prevent voltage collapse conditions. The RTDMS tool monitors the current voltage levels as well as the voltage sensitivity or the rate of change of voltage with respect to power (PV curve sensitivity) at multiple locations and alerts the operators if the voltage deviation or the sensitivity exceeds a set threshold. Additionally, the RTDMS application displays the voltage and angle contour plots for the entire interconnection. This presentation/paper presents the voltage stability monitoring capabilities of the RTDMS tool with illustrations of some practical examples.