From Wide-Area Warnings to Discrete Stability Controls

A very successful "Wide Area Early Warning Systems" panel was held in conjunction with the IEEE-PES-GM2012 by the PES Stability Subcommittee. From experts and panelists discussion, a conclusion was made that "warning" alone is useless and could become a nuisance to operators in today data rich control environment, if not properly and timely converted to effective remedial actions. The present 2013 panel is a follow-up which aims at investigating the various uses of wide-area early information in designing response-based discrete stability control schemes, able to mitigate or stop the impending catastrophes. Several types of stability controls, targeting various instability phenomena, over both automatic or dispatcher time frames will be discussed. The stability restoration means will include load/generation shedding, shunt/series reactance switching, sudden change of controller set points and controlled separation.