Wide-area Protection Research in the Smart Grid

The smart grid brings opportunities and challenges to the power system protection and control. Fast advancement in communication and measurement techniques accelerates the development of wide-area protection, based on the wide-area measurement system. In this paper, the background of smart grid is described. In the smart grid, advanced technologies such as the non conventional instrument transformer, clock synchronization and data synchronization etc offer great opportunities for the development of wide-area protection. According to that, the concept as well as the content and development of wide-area protection is discussed. Some key technologies, like wide-area measurement system, and wide-area communication system are analyzed. Finally, the development trends of wide-area protection in smart grid are prospected.