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The Pathway for PMUs into Dominion
Virginia Power’s Control Center
IEEE PES GM 2015 Panel Session on the
Pathway for Synchrophasors into Control Centers
July 28, 2015 – Denver, CO
Presented by: Kevin D. Jones, Ph.D.
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About Dominion Virginia Power
Electric Transmission
 6,400 miles of transmission lines
 500kV – 1250 miles
 230kV – 2600 miles
 115kV – 2300 miles
Electric Distribution
 56,900 miles of distribution lines
 2.5 million franchise retail
customer accounts in VA and NC
PMU Integration began in 2009 with SGIG and
Non-Stimulus grants completed in 2013
 80 PMUs in EHV network
 21 500kV Substations monitored with PMU
 27 control houses involved
Suite of PMU-based network applications
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Three Phase Linear State Estimator
CT & PT Calibration
Sequence Component Monitoring
Decision Tree Based Islanding Detection
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PMUs at DVP Since the Demo
Continuing forward…
Struggles & pain points
• Developed internal subject
matter expertise
• Standardized deployment
strategy
• Establishment of PMU and
signal naming conventions
• A push for data quality
• PDC architecture upgrades
• Modeling automation
• Identification of organizationwide value potential
• Routine maintenance
• Managing planned and
unplanned outages
• Commissioning of new PMU
devices
• SME time allocation to nonsynchrophasor efforts
• Determination of process
ownership
• Operations integration and
app support
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PMUs in DVP Control Room
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PMUs in DVP Control Room
• Synchrophasor are in
the control room!
• Simple visualizations
build trust in new
technology
• Demonstrates end-toend system
However, this can’t be the
pinnacle of success for control
room integration!!
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Provisions for Control Room Integration
– More synchrophasors
• Organic continued deployment through strategic
standardization
– A commitment to data quality
• End-to-end considerations for data quality
– Operational data analytics & applications
• Next gen. data arch., analytics for ‘complete package’
– Mature data visualizations
• Start simplistic  build trust  evolve
– Engineer and operator training
• Developing internal subject matter expertise
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The Pathway for PMUs into DVP’s Control Center
• Align synchrophasor
goals with key functions
and values of DVP as
Transmission Owner
(TO)
• Limitation of scope:
synchrophasors can do
so many things, but pick
a small number of use
cases to champion
System
Restoration
Situational
Awareness
State
Estimation
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State Estimation with PMUs
Why is State Estimation key?
Challenges to SE Integration
• Integration of PMU measurements
into traditional state estimators
• At DVP, the supporting
infrastructure is in place
– Cross validation of data and model
• PMU data validates SCADA data
and network model
• SCADA data and model validate
PMU data
• Linear state estimation for
synchrophasor-only network
applications
• PMU integration into SE is a known
solution (low risk value add)
– We can pattern after others
– We can expect a workable result
– Central PDC
– Translation adapter to EMS
• Human/time resource is needed
to ramp up
– Integrate existing PMUs
– SCADA modeling
– SE testing
• Need a sustainable process to
maintain, troubleshoot, and grow
synchrophasor footprint in
traditional SE
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Situational Awareness with PMUs
• Polar Chart
• Early Warning System
for Blackouts
• Community Watch everyone should do
their part!
• NE Blackout of 2003
• Angle Walkout
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Situational Awareness with PMUs
• How to keep operators informed of “What just
happened??”
• Event Detection – Success stories of FNET
demonstrate the ability of time synchronized
measurements to detect and locate events
• Near Real Time Event Analysis – Post event analysis
just after an event to provide operators with event
narrative
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System Restoration with PMUs
• During system restoration activities, especially black start
scenarios, Dominion is not just a TO anymore
– During black start conditions, TO is likely to be its own BA, RC, etc.
Frequency Monitoring
– Low system inertia
– It will be important to know
the affect operator switching
decisions will have on
frequency.
• So that we don’t try to pick up
too much load
• So that we don’t waste time
picking up loads that are very
small
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System Restoration with PMUs
• During system restoration activities, especially black start
scenarios, Dominion is not just a TO anymore
– During black start conditions, TO is likely to be its own BA, RC, etc.
Computational
isolated regions
Island Synchronization
– LSE can handle computational
and physical islands
– Synchronized monitoring of
islands
• Voltage
• Frequency
• Angle across breaker
PMU Locations
Electrically
isolated regions
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System Restoration with PMUs
• During system restoration activities, especially black start
scenarios, Dominion is not just a TO anymore
– During black start conditions, TO is likely to be its own BA, RC, etc.
Breaker Closing Angle
– Thin application layer over LSE
– If Line1-2 is open, how to tell
breaker closing angle?
V1
• Substitute V1 with Vx
• Compute Vx with Vy & Iy
Vx
Iy
Vy
V2
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System Restoration with PMUs
• During system restoration activities, especially black start
scenarios, Dominion is not just a TO anymore
– During black start conditions, TO is likely to be its own BA, RC, etc.
– Applications which may not seem relevant for day-to-day operations
can become much more valuable under stressed or outaged system
conditions
• Network applications developed for system restoration
conditions could have ‘blue sky’ analogues where the
application can be adapted to provide value day-to-day
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Summary & Conclusion
• Fundamentals key to control room integration:
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Standardized deployment strategies
Data quality solutions
Applications and data analytics
Mature visualizations
Engineer and operator training
• While synchrophasors are capable of much, scope
limitation and functional alignment are also
imperative to control room integration:
– State Estimation
– Situational Awareness
– System Restoration
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Questions?
• Contact Info
Kevin D. Jones, Ph.D.
Operations Planning – System Operations Center
Dominion Virginia Power
Personal Mobile: 304-767-4748
Office Mobile: 804-380-0658
Office: 804-273-3316
kevin.d.jones@dom.com
kevin.d.jones@outlook.com