Confidence Assessment for Regional Forced Oscillation Source Localization: Formulation and Field Validation

Occasionally, forced oscillations (FO) may appear in a power system, and it is critical to quickly identify and isolate their sources in order to prevent damage to other assets. These FOs can interact with natural oscillation modes and propagate to multiple areas, typically managed by different entities, making the source identification problem very challenging. To aid coordination among regional operators during wide-area oscillations, a phasor measurement unit (PMU)-based platform for detecting FOs and identifying their source region was recently tested in the U.S. Eastern Interconnection (EI). Oscillation notifications generated by this platform included an easily-interpretable confidence score that conveyed how imperfect data might have impacted source localization accuracy. This article reports: a) how the confidence score was developed, b) how it performed in an interconnection-level field demonstration, and c) how it can be refined for future implementation. It is shown that the proposed confidence assessment strategy helps system operators ascertain the veracity of source localization results, and accordingly formulate response plans.