Smart grids Part 2: Synchrophasor measurement challenges

Smart grids pose two sorts of interesting challenges to phasor measurement techniques. The main challenge results from estimating the parameters of voltage and current signals. It has been a hot topic since the advent of the phasor measurement unit (PMU) in the acquisition of synchrophasors of a power system under dynamic conditions. There are several research groups working in this field who have published recent exemplary papers [1]-[4]. They investigated the important role played by the IEEE Synchrophasor Standard [5] in this endeavor. The other incipient problem is the electromechanical mode identification field. In this case, new phasor estimation methods are recently competing with the well-known Prony Method (Chap. 1 of [6]) or the Hilbert- Huang technique (Chap. 2-3 of [6]) to decompose a power oscillation into its dynamic modes.