End-to-End Remote Field Testing of Phasor Measurement Units Using Phasor Measurement Unit Performance Analyzer Test Suite

Phasor measurement unit (PMU) testing is desired to ensure the continued power system monitoring and the maneuvering precision of synchrophasor-based control. IEEE Std C37.118 and IEEE synchrophasor measurement test suite specification (TSS) clarify the different requirements for both steady-state and dynamic test scenarios with varied error ranges. Existing PMU testing requires taking PMUs out of service and test in the lab typically manually. This article presents an architecture for remote PMU testing utilizing the PMU performance analyzer (PPA) test suite, which can considerably reduce the cost while achieving the substation automation. The proposed field-programmable gate array (FPGA) programming method is demonstrated to meet the TSS requirements for signal source generators (SSG). The accuracy of the frequency and harmonic distortion factors by SSG using the proposed method are compared with the built-in signal generation module of the national instruments (NI) cRIO system. The steady-state and dynamic test results of remote PMU testing based on the proposed architecture are presented in this article. The satisfactory performance test results demonstrate the feasibility of the architecture.