The first control action in power system restoration concerns the generation restart. In the initial phase of restoration, operators are often concerned with load pickup problems. One of the important problems during load pickup is keeping frequency response in allowable range. The aim of this paper is to determine the best sequence of load pickup by hydro and steam units during power system restoration based on frequency response of prime movers. Hydro power plants and combustion turbine units have the capability of black start operation and can be used for early stages of power system restoration. This paper considers hydro power plants for evaluating the stability and frequency response during load pickup in the early stages of restoration. Load pickup scheme has been developed based on using a pair of interconnected units.

Frequency control during power system restoration has not been strongly addressed. Operators are often concerned with the offline sizing of load and generation steps, but, nowadays, the introduction of Wide Area Measurement System (WAMS) makes it possible to monitor the stability of power system online. The constraints of WAMS operation result in some changes in power system frequency control. This paper proposes a novel methodology for frequency control and monitoring during the early steps of power system restoration based on WAMS. Detailed load modeling is achieved based on the static load modeling approach. Power generators' modeling is also accomplished utilizing the single machine equivalent of the power system based on PMU measurements. Simulation results of the presented methodology on the 39 bus New England power system clearly show the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed method. The simulation results show that the presented approach has a completely acceptable precision and an outstanding speed with less than 0.05% error. The outstanding speed of the presented approach along with the result precision will result in a great promotion in power system restoration methodologies.

One of important subjects in power system restoration that already is not addressed is frequency control. Operators are often concerned with the size of load and generation, which can be safely increased.With the emphasis on higher utilization of power systems, monitoring of its dynamics is becoming increasingly important. This requires information with higher accuracy and update rates faster than those usually provided by traditional SCADA systems. In addition, it must be synchronized over a wider geographical area than that provided by traditional protection systems. Nowadays, the introduction of Phasor Measurement Units (PMU) and Wide Area Monitoring Systems (WAMS) as well as advances in communication and computational equipment make it technically possible to monitor the stability of the power system online, using a wide area perspective.In this paper a novel method for frequency control during restoration is presented. Simulations were carried out on 39 bus New England system to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.A single-machine equivalent for each power system island is computed online using PMUs. Using this model the progression of frequency stability after a disturbance is predicted, so suitable amount of load pickup or generation increase can be determined for the supervised island of the power system.

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