Determination of generators coherent groups based on synchrophasors using bioinformatics toolbox

One of the main characteristics of Smart Grids is self healing. This means that the grid should rapidly detects, analyzes, acts and restores for system instabilities. Controlled islanding is one of the techniques used to mitigate these system instabilities. In order to split the system into islands, groups of coherent generators should be firstly identified. This paper proposes a k-means technique of the Matlab Bioinformatics toolbox, which utilizes phasor measurement units (PMUs) outputs for identifying the generators coherent groups. The Bioinformatics technique is used for real time clustering of generators, which swing together, enabling splitting the system into islands much faster. The proposed technique is applied firstly on the IEEE -39 bus system. Then it is applied to an actual grid (the Egyptian Power 218 bus system) as study systems. Compared to conventional coherency approaches, the bioinformatics technique is much simple in implementation and supports real time applications.