Abstract
With the advent of a new Precision Time Protocol specification, new opportunities abound for clock synchronization possibilities within power grid control systems. The third iteration of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standard 1588 specification provides several new features specifically aimed at complex, wide-area deployments in which situational awareness and control require precise time agreement. This paper describes the challenges faced by existing technology, introduces the new time distribution specification, and provides examples to explain how it represents a game-changing innovation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 5303 |
| Journal | Energies |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue number | 17 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 1 2021 |
Funding
Very large systems, such as national power grids, present many interesting challenges simply because of their physical size, complexity, and the number of components that comprise them. For such systems, assessing the overall health or even the health of an isolated portion of the overall system can involve many devices that are separated physically. When faced with the need to coordinate the control or protection of geographically separated devices or to establish the root cause of an error condition, the necessity of being able to properly align measurements and/or order the events of a large system is quickly seen. For power systems in particular, phase angle differences (or relative phase angles) on the system provide significant information, but require all of the devices to have a common time base. Clock synchronization protocols enable network devices to meet these requirements [1]. (Notice: This manuscript was authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under Contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The U.S. government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for U.S. government purposes. The DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan; accessed on 21 August 2021). Terry Jones?This research was funded by the US DOE Office of Electricity. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is operated by Battelle for the US DOE under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725; Doug Arnold?This research received no external funding; Frank Tuffner?This research was funded by the US DOE Office of Electricity. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is operated by Battelle for the US DOE under contract DE-AC05-76RL01830; Rodney Cummings?This research received no external funding; Kang Lee?This research received no external funding.
Keywords
- Clock synchronization
- Distributed Time Protocol
- IEEE 1588
- Precision Time Protocol
- Time service