Distribution Task Team

Contacts

The mission of the NASPI Distribution Task Team is to foster the use and capabilities of synchronized measurement data at the medium-voltage distribution level, beyond the substation.

This group shares information in support of effective research, development and deployment of distribution PMUs and related measurement devices.

We aim to cultivate a community to solve technical and other challenges specific to synchronized measurement technology and its applications in distribution system operation, planning and analysis.

(Updated May 2021)

 

Point-on-wave data collected on the 20 kV network of EPFL-campus. Learn more!

Documents

Title Description
Reference Document for micro-PMU Installation

ARPA-E Plus-Up Project Award # DE-AR0000340, Milestone 1.3.2, Subtask 1.33
Draft March 23, 2018. Aminy Ostfeld, Kyle Brady, Laura Mehrmanesh and Alexandra von Meier, UC Berkeley.

This manual is a living document, intended to help utilities and researchers in the planning and installation of networks of micro-phasor measurement units (μPMUs) on distribution circuits. It addresses practical barriers and concerns that can be encountered in setting up a network of μPMUs on distribution circuits, as well as issues that arise in maintaining a back end for data storage and analytics. It further discusses the impact of installation location and related limitations, such as instrument transformer error and availability of three-phase voltage and current measurements, on suitability for various analytic applications. It also contains a collection of specific advice and lessons learned from the ARPA-E funded “Micro-Synchrophasors for Distribution Systems” project carried out by researchers and distribution system operators at UC Berkeley (UCB), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL), Power Standards Laboratory (PSL), and a number of partner utilities.

Grid Modernization Lab Consortium
Pure and applied metrology

A few years ago I joined a team of experts writing a revised standard for phasor measurement units (PMUs), devices that seemed to perform amazing feats of measurement in electric power systems. Not long after I joined the group, I began to be troubled by what we were writing about the measurement of frequency. In particular, it seemed to me that the term frequency had not been defined if it was changing, and since the PMU was expected to return a value for the rate of change of frequency (ROCOF), it was obviously expected to be changing. If the term is not defined precisely, I thought, how would you know if the measurement was being made accurately?

Resources contributed by Luigi Vanfretti
Measurement of Phasor-like Signals

This report is a summary of work done principally in 2015 and 2016. The work began, at a low level of funding and activity, a year or so earlier, in an attempt to understand what exactly was being measured by a device known as a phasor measurement unit. This was important because I was a member of the working group of experts who were writing the improved Standard for PMU (phasor measurement unit) performance.