Optimization and coordination of wide-area damping controls for enhancing the transfer capability of interconnected power systems

This paper proposes systematic procedures to design wide-area damping controls (WADCs) in large interconnected power systems. An efficient model reduction method is first introduced, based on the pseudo-random binary signal (PRBS) probing technique and the prediction error identification algorithm (PEM). Then, the comprehensive controllability concept, as well as its calculating method, is proposed for properly locating the supplementary damping controllers. Further, an improved modal performance index is adopted as the measure of the stabilizing effect. With various constraints taken into account to meet practical engineering requirements, finally, the optimized and coordinated tuning of WADC parameters under various operation scenarios is achieved by a constrained nonlinear programming algorithm. The proposed approach has been tested on a practical 437-machine, 2791-node interconnected power system and the simulation results have demonstrated its high effectiveness in damping inter-area oscillations and enhancing across-region transfer capabilities.