Overview of IEEE Standards for

Synchronous Phasor Measurement Units

(Course Seminar Report)

Joel Jose
14T070001
AbstractThe abstract goes here.

I.

I NTRODUCTION

Increasing power system sizes make real-time system monitoring a very important task. System monitoring is more critical during disturbances and transients. To capture the dynamics
accurately, synchronized measurements from various parts of
the system which might be spread across large geographical
area is required. Synchronized measurements can also aid in
protection, automation and state estimation.
Synchronous Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) is a device
which can measure electrical phasors synchronized with a
common time reference.
Phasors were introduced in power system analysis by
Steinmetz in 1893 itself [1]. The first PMU prototypes were
developed in 1988 at Virginia Tech by Dr. Arun G. Phadke and
Dr. James S. Thorp and commercialized by Macrodyne in 1992
[2]. Synchronized measurements are made possible by using
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) from Global Positioning
System (GPS).
The adoption of PMU in commercial systems were delayed
by the following factors:

High capital investment

High maintenance and calibration costs

Lack of interoperability in various commercial products

Utilities needed the guarantee of reliability and accuracy of

PMUs and interchangeability among the PMUs from different
vendors before they invested in them. The requirement of
interoperability and the need for improved testing and calibration methods led to the development of set of standards
for measurement and data transfer using synchronous phasor
measurement units.
Section II discusses the evolution of IEEE PMU standards.
The IEEE Std C37.118.1-2011 and the revision IEEE Std
C37.118.1a-2014 are described in detail in further sections.
A brief summary of the communications standard IEEE Std
C37.118.2-2011 is presented in Section V.
II.

for timing input and phasor data output from a PMU. It was
replaced by IEEE Std C37.118-2005 which introduced the
concept of Total Vector Error (TVE) and described compliance
tests. The IEEE Std C37.118-2005 also brought in improvements in data communication specifications to facilitate better
coordination with a master station.
The 2005 version specified performance of phasor measurement units only under steady-state conditions. The 2011
revision, IEEE Std C37.118.1-2011 includes definitions and
measurement requirements for dynamic power system conditions. Since synchronized measurements can be very useful
in capturing dynamics during transients and disturbances, the
inclusion of specifications for such practical conditions in the
standard is essential. This revision separated the communication sub-clause of IEEE Std C37.118-2005 into a separate standard IEEE C37.118.2-2011 claiming that it will aid widespread
adoption and deployment.
III.

T HE IEEE C37.118.1-2011 S TANDARD

Definitions given
Phasor estimation and time synchronization
TVE
FE
RFE
Reporting latency
Flags
Performance Classes
Steady state and dynamic compliance
Time tagging
Annex B waveforms from the PMU simulator.
Draw diagram of single phase estimation reference model from
Annex C.
IV.

Why this revision?

Impractical standards

V.

T HE IEEE C37.118.2 S TANDARD

Just a brief intro of what the data transfer standard is

dealing with.

IEEE PMU S TANDARDS

The original synchrophasor standard was IEEE Std 13441995 which was reaffirmed in 2001. It discussed synchronization of data, sampling, data-to-phasor conversions, and formats

T HE IEEE C37.118.1 A S TANDARD

VI.
Viability
Improvement

C ONCLUSION

Bus 1

Bus 2

V,

V,

t=0

t=0
Common Reference Signal

Fig. 1.

Phasor Representation

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank...
R EFERENCES
[1]

[2]

Steinmetz, C. P., Complex Quantities and Their Use in Electrical Engineering, Proceedings of the International Electrical Congress, Chicago,
1893, pp 3374.
Phadke, A. G., Synchronized phasor measurements-a historical overview,
Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exhibition 2002: Asia
Pacific.