WAMS challenges and limitations in load modeling, voltage stability improvement, and controlled island protection—A review

Abstract

Global energy demand pushes transmission lines to their limits, which causes voltage instability on the power grids. Solar and wind farms are being integrated with increased size and capacity to meet increased load demands, and this increased volumes of renewables, combined with their lower inertia and more sensitive voltage profiles, are complicating system operators’ roles. The execution of phasor measurement unit (PMU) with novel detection and protection schemes has been a focal point for power engineers. The real-time wide-area monitoring system (WAMS) helps grid operators to improve real-time voltage stability, situational awareness, fault detection, and grid planning. WAMS shows the path for developing substation predictions, improving system accuracy, and identifying control strategies to avoid power blackouts. It conducts post-event analysis and reduces the processing time of the power restoration. The novelty of this article is to describe load modeling, voltage stability, and islanding protection in real-time, as well as the technical challenges, limitations, opportunities, and solutions related to the same. Further, the paper explores and presents vital software and hardware resources, including HIL systems, for future use and research with WAMS technology.

Keywords

• Wide-area monitoring
• Phasor measurement unit
• Voltage stability
• Load modeling
• Control-islanding
• Renewable energy integration