Prototype design and preliminary evaluation of a decentralized modular device network for wide-area monitoring, protection and control

This paper describes a prototype design and preliminary evaluation of a decentralized modular device network for wide-area monitoring, protection and control of power systems, utilizing off-the-shelf and standardized information and communications technologies (ICT). The prototype network consists of 100M/1Gbps L2 switch networks, device-embedded and external IEEE 1588-based time synchronizing schemes, and function- and application-based modular devices. Experimental results show that a time synchronization error of less than 1 microsecond between modular devices was achieved, and that the versatile implementation of applications such as wide-area current differential protection and state measurements was conducted successfully.