Considerations on using UMA with Smart Grids

The scope of this paper is to analyze measurements architecture for a Distribution System Operator (DSO) and to anticipate evolutions determined by Smart Grid implementation. Actual measurements architecture for: control, monitoring, protection, power quality (PQ) and energy transfer is presented with respect of a plan-do-study-action Deming cycle. The Smart Grid impact on today's architecture, considering intensive data flows, and the need of increased accuracy in decision making process is investigated by extracting analog features of the performance measurement architecture of an UNIX system. This analysis leads to considerations on the usefulness of UNIX's UMA (unified measurements architecture) applied to power systems. Practical considerations at node level are made, and main advantages determined by UMA are presented from perspective of PQ measurements and PMU usage. Focusing on layer 3 (data services) of UMA architecture, PQ standards related to measurement requirements in DSO nodes are presented. Based on this an estimation of potential developments is made. Practical application based on PMU is presented to show the usage of cross functionalities. Additionally, solutions based on primary data obtained from half cycle rms voltage and current monitoring are derived.