Life cycle testing of synchrophasor based systems used for protection, monitoring and control

Synchrophasor systems constitute a suite of different system solutions aimed at meeting various wide-area application requirements. What characterizes the synchrophasor systems that is not common to any other measurement infrastructure used in the power grid is the following:
• The design has high sensitivity to the accuracy of the clock (time) reference supplied through either a physical GPS/GNSS receiver placed in the substation next to the IED or a “virtual GPS/GNSS receiver” located remotely from the substation.
• The end-to-end solutions are typically implemented using hardware/software components acquired from multiple vendors. Hence there is a need for consistency in performance across products from different vendors.
• The solutions are quite often used across different personnel groups within a given utility company, as well as across different enterprises such as transmission system operator (TSO) and independent system operator (ISO). This may require consistent life cycle management policies across multiple legal entities (enterprises) and perhaps Federal/state jurisdictions.