Versatile platforms for wide area synchronous measurements in power distribution systems

The advent of advances in power system instrumentation has made possible a range of time synchronized measurements of voltages and currents in full phasor form. These synchronized measurements can be used for direct digital control of the system including voltage control, restoration of service after an outage, stability assessment and subsequent enhancement, and system operation in such a way as to improve expected reliability. This paper contains a discussion of synchronized measurements and their communication and data processing platform hardware and software requirements. Some specific examples are given.