Modeling and Testing of a Phasor Measurement Unit Under Normal and Abnormal Conditions Using Real-Time Simulator

Abnormal operations, such as faults occurring in an electrical power system (EPS), disrupt its balanced operation, posing potential hazards to human lives and the system’s equipment. Effective monitoring, control, protection, and coordination are essential to mitigate these risks. The complexity of these processes is further compounded by the presence of intermittent distributed energy resources (DERs) in active distribution networks (ADNs) with bidirectional power flow, which introduces a fast-changing dynamic aspect to the system. The deployment of phasor measurement units (PMUs) within the EPS as highly responsive equipment can play a pivotal role in addressing these challenges, enhancing the system’s resilience and reliability. However, synchrophasor measurement-based studies and analyses of power system phenomena may be hindered by the absence of PMU blocks in certain simulation tools, such as PSCAD, or by the existing PMU block in Matlab/Simulink R2021b, which exhibit technical limitations. These limitations include providing only the positive sequence component of the measurements and lacking information about individual phases, rendering them unsuitable for certain measurements, including unbalanced and non-symmetrical fault operations. This study proposes a new reliable PMU model in Matlab and tests it under normal and abnormal conditions, applying real-time simulation and controller-hardware-in-the-loop (CHIL) techniques.