Synchrophasor-Based Wide Area Protection Scheme for System Stressed Conditions to Avoid Power System Blackout

Protection of transmission system is crucial for the secured and stable operation of power system. Under stress conditions, the operating parameters of power system violate their limits. From the past anatomy reports of several blackouts, it is clear that equipment, control, and protective relay failures are the major causes behind large power system failure. From study, it is also revealed that failure of back-up protection is more prone during system stressed conditions. In transmission system, third-zone of distance relay is highly affected by system stressed events such as voltage instability and load encroachment. As third-zone protection is a delayed protection scheme, with the help of wide area measurement system better protection function can be provided to reduce future percentage of blackout. In this chapter, a detailed discussion about the existing solutions is provided to mitigate the issue of system stressed conditions and a synchrophasor technology-based approach is provided. Results for different cases are provided to show the efficacy of the proposed method.