Wavelet Decomposition for Power Balancing Analysis

Wavelets are a mathematical tool for analyzing time-varying signals. Unlike conventional frequency analysis methods, wavelets give information about the frequency components as a function of time. Wavelets are applied in situations where there are large discrepancies in the frequencies to be analyzed and when the signal to analyze cannot be assumed periodic. In power systems, wavelets are usually applied to determine power-quality issues. In this paper, however, applying wavelets to analyze fluctuations in load and generation profiles is proposed. As generation and load in any power system must always be balanced, wavelets can be applied to identify the required amount of balancing capacity from observing the time-varying nature of the dominant frequencies contained in the power signals.