Use of ARMA block processing for estimating stationary low-frequency electromechanical modes of power systems

Accurate knowledge of low-frequency electromechanical modes in power systems gives vital information about the stability of the system. Current techniques for estimating electromechanical modes are computationally intensive and rely on complex system models. This research complements model based approaches and uses measurement-based techniques. This paper discusses the development of an ARMA (auto-regressive moving average) block processing technique to estimate these low-frequency electromechanical modes from measured ambient power system data without requiring a disturbance. This technique is applied to simulated data containing a stationary low-frequency mode generated from a 19-machine test model. The frequency and damping factor of the estimated modes are compared with the actual modes for various block sizes. This technique is also applied to 35-minute blocks of actual ambient power system data before and after a disturbance and compared to results from Prony analysis on the ringdown from the disturbance.