New Tracking System Could Prevent Disastrous Power Outages

Using modern technology and state-of-the-art measurements called Synchrophasors, researchers have developed a new system for monitoring the North American power grid. The tool could be particularly beneficial to businesses, which lose critical time and data during blackouts.

New Tracking System Could Prevent Disastrous Power Outages
During the 2003 Northeast Blackout—which affected eight states and parts of Canada—more than 50 million people lost power. Failing water pumps leaked sewage, public transportation stalled, and cellular communication was severely limited.
Power outages, even minor ones, are particularly detrimental to businesses, which often lose access to critical data until power returns. During the 2003 crisis, for example, up to $10 billion dollars were lost.
Now, a new power monitoring system from researchers at North Carolina State University is aiming to prevent blackouts like the disaster of 2003. The technology monitors large power systems, such as entire states and regions, to find potential weaknesses.
The new system makes use of synchronized phasor measurements, or Synchrophasors, readings taken across wide ranges on a power grid. These measurements allow engineers to analyze specific locations or compare several locations at once. Synchrophasors are measured digitally by phasor measurement units (PMUs).
"PMUs are comparable to surveillance cameras that continuously monitor the complex dynamics of groups of people in busy places, and indicate how different people respond and interact with each other," explained Dr. Aranya Chakrabortty in the university's statement about the research. Chakrabortty is an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State University. He is the lead author of the team's paper, which was published online this month by IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid.
"This research is a major step toward helping us understand how Synchrophasor technology can be used to model the complex behavior of any large, geographically distributed power system, especially taking into account the system's interconnected nature," Chakrabortty continued.
"We need to have a better understanding of how a disturbance entering one generation cluster—or localized group of nodes—may spread across the entire system, creating havoc in its neighboring clusters as well," said Chakrabortty. "More importantly, we need to investigate if the speed of this spread is dictated by the way these clusters are connected to each other."