Analysis of communication network challenges for synchrophasor-based wide-area applications

Wide-area synchrophasor applications inherently depend on the underlying IT and communications infrastructure supporting them. In particular, closed loop control systems for power grid oscillation damping is problematic, as it is a complex mixture of power grid monitoring, communication network properties and overall system stability issues. This article offers a holistic analysis of these fields, proposing a combined requirement on the full system: to keep system delays down to maintain stability. Simulation results to support the analysis findings, also showing how observability of power oscillations is important in combination with system delays related to feedback signals, and finally laying out experimentation plans to be performed in the lab on a complex power-grid model with real PMUs, communication network and controllers interacting with the SmarTS Lab real-time hardware-in-the-loop simulator platform.