Linear State Estimator for the Control Room: AEP’s Experience

This chapter describes the experience of American Electric Power (AEP) deploying a synchrophasor-based linear state estimator (LSE) for control room operations. The chapter shares some of the objectives and implementation details of the LSE project since its kickoff in 2020, including some of the LSE integration and maintenance challenges, such as modeling, one-line diagram visualizations, and alarms configurations. The benefits of the LSE in AEP’s implementation are also covered, providing quantitative metrics for the extended observability achieved in AEP’s footprint and the effect on situational awareness for fast and reliable system monitoring. With the utilization of almost 700 phasor measurement units (PMUs) monitoring AEP’s bulk power system in three regional transmission organizations (RTOs) jurisdiction, AEP’s LSE experience serves as a real-world example of synchrophasor technology adoption for operations.