A US-wide power systems frequency monitoring network

Frequency dynamics is one of the most important measures of an electrical power system. To better understand power system dynamics, accurately measured wide-area frequency is needed. The concept of building an Internet based real-time GPS synchronized wide area frequency monitoring network (FNET) was proposed in 2000, and the actual system has been deployed. The FNET system consists of frequency disturbance recorders (FDR) and an information management system (IMS). The FNET has made the synchronized observations of the entire US power network possible for the first time. This paper summarizes the implementation of the FNET system and shows some preliminary observations and analyses of the data that has been collected from the FNET.