A microcontroller-based phasor measurement system with CAN bus communication

This paper describes a microcontroller-based phasor measurement system with controller area network (CAN) bus communication capability for control of a distributed generator (DG). The CAN bus protocol allows voltage and current phasors, calculated at the point of common connection with the grid, to be broadcast to several DG units in a cluster. Each DG unit in a cluster can assume the supervisory role and perform utility interface control functions needed for compliance with the IEEE 1547 standard for interconnection of DGs with electric power systems. The microcontroller-based phasor measurement system builds on technology and algorithms derived from early phasor measurement units developed 20-30 years ago using 8-bit processors. Utilizing modern microcontrollers along with novel algorithms provides reasonable performance at a low cost. Numerical filtering provides measurement precision to within about 1% of the nominal voltage magnitude and to within about 0.02 Hz in voltage frequency.