A Reliable Wide-Area and Wideband Synchronized Measurement System to Improve Grid Resiliency – A Practical Approach

Extreme weather conditions are placing harder requirements on grid resiliency. We have developed and deployed wideband optical electric field sensors to enable a wide-area synchrophasor and synchronized waveform measurement system on the transmission grid in Puerto Rico with up to one mega-samples-per-second (Msps) measurement resolution. This wide-area synchronized measurement system is architected with distributed redundancy to enable dependable realization of a number of advanced functions. Practicality, safety, and cost efficiency have been core driving principles in deploying this system. In this paper, we report on the measurement system architecture and provide examples of field experience including impact of the distributed redundant architecture on dependable travelling wave fault location to improve availability and resiliency.