Model Validation Studies for a Disturbance Event That Occurred on June 14 2004 in the Western Interconnection

The reliable operation of the interconnected electric system heavily depends upon the accuracy of the dynamic simulation studies. The simulation studies contain models of complex components such as generators, exciter, governors, loads, etc. Many of these models are at best approximate. Hence, the simulation studies must be validated against actual system disturbance from time to time to have confidence in the study results. Such model validation was conducted for a very complex event in WECC interconnected system. It was found necessary to adjust generator saturation and over-excitation models of the units in a large nuclear power plant to achieve a satisfactory correlation. The validated data was then used to run several what if scenarios.