Impedance matching controllers to extinguish electromechanical waves in power networks

In this paper we design power system controllers to eliminate electromechanical disturbances associated with swing dynamics of electrically coupled generators. Based on the view that such disturbances spread as traveling waves, we employ an impedance matching approach to inhibit reflections of traveling waves. We present two controllers: one that directly meets this objective but requires a difficult measurement, and another from the authors' prior work (2002) that approximates the control objective using commonly available, local measurements. We show the effectiveness of these controllers on regular grids and discuss practical issues that point towards future research.