GIC-Inclusive State Estimator for Power System Awareness During Geomagnetic Disturbance Events

Geomagnetic disturbances (GMDs) threaten the secure and reliable operation of the electric power grid. During a GMD, geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) cause additional reactive power losses and a lowered voltage profile. Preventing and mitigating a widespread system collapse in such an occurrence requires accurate knowledge of the current system state. This is provided by power system state estimation, but as traditional methods do not account for GIC-related monitoring and modeling, they may fail to provide accurate results during a GMD. Therefore, in this work excess reactive power losses are explicitly modeled in the state estimation method and GIC-related values are included among the states and measurements. The modeling scheme is thoroughly discussed and estimation results on a 20 bus and 150 bus case validate the estimation accuracy improvement provided by a GIC-inclusive modified state estimator during a GMD.