Analysis of Wide Area Monitoring System architectures

Wide Area Measurement System (WAMS) is technology to improve situational awareness and visibility within power system of today's and future grids. It uses real time synchro phasor data to measure the state of grid that enables improvement in stability and reliability of power grid. WAMS architecture plays an important role in these real time and data intensive systems. Proper selection of WAMS architecture helps immensely in achieving the benefits of WAMS technology namely increase in stability and reliability of grid. The factors like PMU data acquisition, decision making based on PMU data and the enactment of actions based on decision making determine the architecture details of WAMS. This paper discusses how different combinations of these factors lead to different realizable types of WAMS architectures. In addition, this paper also presents detailed comparison of all WAMS architectures to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of implementing each one of them based on WAMS features like WAMS data communication, data security, data storage, alarm/event management, system availability etc. The paper concludes with summarizing the architecture options and their possible use cases.