Real-time simulation of power system stability using parallel digital signal processors

An electrical power system usually includes machines with their regulators and controls linked through power lines, transformers, capacitor banks, reactors, and loads. In stability analysis, two distinct strategies are possible for solving the differential equations and network equations describing such a system: a simultaneous approach and a partitioned approach. For real-time numerical simulation, the partitioned approach is easier to distribute over parallel processors [2,11] and is therefore more appropriate in this case. In order to demonstrate the feasibility of the real-time simulation of power system stability, this paper presents an implementation of the partitioned approach using parallel digital signal processors (DSP). A network of typical size consisting of 8 machines and 50 buses is simulated. The synchronous machine model has been developed using the block diagram implementation technique. Two algorithms applied to the solution of the network algebraic equations are described and their performances are evaluated on different processors.