A Fast Recursive Algorithm for Spectrum Tracking in Power Grid Systems

A major challenge for future wide area measurement systems is how to efficiently monitor and control the power system, which requires accurate and real-time tracking of the phase, frequency, and power factor of the system. The presence of inter and sub harmonics, especially in a distribution system caused by widely used nonlinear power loads, rectifiers, and inverters, will distort estimation of phase/frequency and make it difficult to track the voltage, current, and frequency variations. In this paper we present a new approach to identify and track the harmonics, sub-harmonics, and inter-harmonics, as well as observe their impact on the power system. We propose a two-stage processing approach that consists of a subspace-based estimation method to detect and identify all harmonic components, followed by a low-complexity fast tracking algorithm to monitor frequency variations of voltage and current signals in real-time with great accuracy. The simulation results show that the proposed approach can provide highly reliable estimation and fast tracking of the harmonic components, while avoiding the impact of time variance.