PNNL

Abstract

Novel Applications for Synchronized Power Instrumentation (NASPI), in collaboration with the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES), established the Synchro-Waveform State-of-Practice Task Force to conduct an industry survey of utilities, independent system operators (ISOs), and technology vendors and document the current state of practice for high-resolution waveform measurements. The survey was motivated by growing interest in high-resolution, time-synchronized waveform measurements for monitoring increasingly fast power system dynamics associated with inverter-based resources and large data center loads. These developments have prompted the need to better understand how these measurements are currently acquired, managed, and used across the industry. The task force therefore sought to assess existing deployment practices, commercially available capabilities, application priorities, supporting infrastructure, and potential barriers to broader adoption. The survey was organized around six priority areas: waveform acquisition; time synchronization; communication and data retrieval; storage and data management; applications, analytics, and use; and deployment maturity. Questions were structured separately for utilities/ISOs and technology vendors to compare current end-user practices with available vendor capabilities. The survey responses indicate that high-resolution waveform measurement capability is already broadly established among participating organizations, with both event-triggered and continuous recording in use and time synchronization widely implemented. At the same time, notable variation exists in data retrieval, communication protocols, storage practices, data formats, compression, and integration of analytics into operational workflows. The results also indicate growing interest in extending waveform use beyond traditional disturbance recording toward applications such as oscillation monitoring and model validation. This report presents the survey results as an industry-informed baseline for the current state of synchro-waveform technology deployment and identifies areas where continued work on interoperability, scalable data management, automation, application-specific requirements, and operational integration could support broader adoption and use.