Calculate Center-of-Inertia Frequency and System RoCoF Using PMU Data

Abstract: The power system frequency is important for the system overall stability. However, there does not exist a single measurement point of the system frequency due to the distributed nature of the system inertia and the small inconsistency of different generator rotor electrical speeds in one synchronized system. This paper proposed a new approach to calculate the system center-of-inertia (COI) frequency and the rate-of-change-of-frequency (RoCoF) more accurately using PMU data at multiple locations. The COI frequency and the RoCoF value were further used to assist fast estimation of the imbalance MW amount of a frequency event. Test results using actual measurements in the U.S. Eastern Interconnection system validated the effectiveness of the proposed method.