Enhancement of power system protection using wide area information

电力系统，包括发电、输电及配电系统，均受到保护，以防止各种故障，例如雷击造成的短路、导体碰撞及设备故障。保护系统的故障不仅会导致设备损坏和服务连续性的丧失，而且可能导致系统崩溃和停电。尽管在过去的二十年中，电力系统的保护已经得到了显著的改善，但研究表明，在75%的重大干扰和停电事故中，保护装置都以某种方式参与其中。近年来电力系统规模的扩大和复杂性的增加、高压输电线路和保护装置的复杂设置增加了保护失效导致连锁事件的风险。在配电系统中，随着风能、太阳能等可再生能源的广泛应用，传统的配电系统保护技术已不再适用。在当今的电力系统中，保护装置之间的数据通信仅用于关键输电线路的保护系统，并且仅限于极少数保护装置。最近推出了几项旨在实现电力系统现代化的举措，包括在输电和配电层面开发广域测量和通信系统，以实现智能电网。因此，拟议的研究计划的目的是调查现有的增强和发展新的电力系统保护技术的输电和配电系统使用广域信息促进通过现有的和不久的将来的智能电网基础设施。该研究计划的成果将通过提供电力系统保护和自动化方面的新技术和策略，帮助加拿大和世界各地的各种公用事业，制造商，咨询公司，标准组织和其他研究实体，以提高可靠性并解决整合可再生能源的各种保护问题。该项目将支持2名本科生，2名硕士和2名博士。学生进行拟议的研究计划。

Electric power systems including generation, transmission and distribution are protected against various types of faults such as short circuit due to lightning strike, conductor clash and equipment failure. Failure of protection system not only leads to equipment damage and loss of service continuity but it may result in system collapse and blackouts. Even though power system protection has been significantly improved during the last two decades, studies indicate that protection devices are involved, one way or another, in 75% of major disturbances and blackouts. The recent enlargement and increased complexity of power system, highly stressed transmission lines and complex settings of protection devices have increased the risk of protection failure leading to cascading events. In distribution level, by recent integration of renewable energy resources such as wind and solar generations, conventional protection techniques used in distribution system are no longer compelling. In today's power systems, data communication among protection devices is only used in protection systems of critical transmission lines and is limited to very few protective devices. Several initiatives were recently launched for modernizing electric power systems including the development of wide area measurement and communication systems in transmission and distribution levels to realize smarter electric gird. The proposed research program thus aims to investigate the enhancement of existing and development of new power system protection techniques for transmission and distribution systems using wide area information facilitated through existing and near future smart gird infrastructure. The results of this research program will assist various utilities, manufacturers, consulting companies, standards' organizations and other research entities in Canada and the world by providing new techniques and strategies in power system protection and automation to increase reliability and address various protection issues of integrating renewable energy resources. This program will support 2 undergraduates, 2 master's and 2 Ph.D. students to conduct the proposed research program.