A PSO-MMA method for the parameters estimation of inter-area oscillations in electrical grids

This article deals with the parameters’ measurement of interarea oscillations, which are low-frequency damped oscillations that affect the high-voltage transmission lines when an unbalance between the power demand and the generated power occurs. The authors propose a method that processes the samples provided by the phasor measurement unit (PMU) and performs the online estimation of the parameters that characterize the interarea oscillations. The method takes advantage of the speed of a heuristic algorithm, such as the particle swarm optimization (PSO), but performs an enhancement on the results to increase the reliability. The tests carried out for the method assessment prove that the proposed method is characterized by a fast response, high accuracy, and excellent reliability, regardless of the type of oscillation that is considered.