Plenary Lecture

Recent Advances and Applications of Synchronized Phasor Measurements in Power Systems

Professor Mihai Gavrilas
Technical University of Iasi
Romania
E-mail: mgavril@ee.tuiasi.ro

Abstract: Present power systems operate in more and more difficult conditions generated by various physical and economic factors. These include the need for larger power transfer capabilities over longer distances, insufficient development of the actual transmission systems, ceaseless load growth, large variations of power flows on transmission lines and complex load profiles from the system buses from one day to the next and new constraints imposed by the efficient operation of power markets. By pushing power systems closer to their physical limits, these circumstances led to less reliable operating conditions that require a better control across the entire grid, through more intensive online analysis. At present a common point of view considers that Synchronized Phasor Measurement (SPM) units and Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS), along with distributed generation and storage devices are the main technologies that can successfully and efficiently address such problems. This paper presents the state of the art of the synchronized phasor measurement technology and its applications to power systems, together with detailed results of investigations conducted in this field by the author. A series of ongoing projects implemented in different countries (North America, France, Spain, Italy, Scandinavian countries, Romania, China, and Japan) are briefly presented. A special section will be dedicated to the analysis of the main challenges and opportunities for the SPM technology and its applications in power systems.

Brief Biography of the Speaker:
Mihai Gavrilas was born in Iasi, Romania on February, 6, 1959. He received the M.Sc. degree from the “Gh. Asachi” Technical University of Iasi, Romania, in 1984. Between 1984 and 1988 he worked as a field engineer and then as a design engineer in the field of power station and substation building and design. Since 1988 he has been devoted to education and research at the “Gh. Asachi” Technical University of Iasi, where, at present, he is a professor with the Power System department, inside the faculty of Electrical Engineering. In 1994 he received the Ph D degree in power systems from the Technical University of Iasi. He is reading courses on Power systems steady state and stability analysis, Intelligent systems application in power systems and Electricity markets. He has a remarkable scientific and educational experience being the author or joint author of 10 books, and over 120 papers in the area of power systems and intelligent systems applications, published in international journals and conference proceedings (13 papers in ISI and other indexing international databases). He also has a valuable project management experience (project manager or member in the research team) in over 40 research grants sponsored by research organizations and / or research programs with partners from industry. He is an IEEE member (Power and Energy Society, Computational Intelligence Society, Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society) since 1994, and a CIGRE member since 2008. His main research interests are directed towards multi-objective optimization for power systems steady-state operating conditions, power systems dynamics and control, state estimation and observability analysis in power systems, and computational intelligence application in power systems. He participated in the 8th WSEAS International Conference on POWER SYSTEMS (PS 2008), Santander, Cantabria, Spain.