Synchrophasor-assisted line outage identification: A simple and iterative algorithm

This paper proposes a new iterative algorithm for detection of outage of two- and three-terminal lines in a wide-area power network. The proposed methodology uses the combination of pre- and post-event information captured by phasor measurement units (PMUs) dispersed over the network. First, to limit the event search space and reduce the execution time of the proposed iterative algorithm, a set of suspicious lines are determined through the comparison of variations of voltage phase angle of buses equipped with PMUs. Then, each suspicious line is assumed to be on outage the current phasor of its' one (or both) end(s) is estimated. If the estimated current is approximately zero, the associated transmission line is on outage in reality and the screening process terminates; otherwise, the process continues by examining the next suspicious line. In a power system with the minimum number of PMUs ensuring network complete observability, the proposed iterative algorithm can identify outage of all transmission lines. The reliability of the proposed algorithm is verified by simulations on IEEE 14-bus test system. The effects of system stressed conditions (generator outage, power swing, and load encroachment) on the performance of the proposed method are evaluated as well.