Substation Time Synchronization

For nearly a hundred years, the electric power industry operated without an external time reference, except perhaps to ensure that the average frequency was correct so as to keep clocks with synchronous motors running on-time. The past decade has seen an explosion in the use of accurate time in the substation and generation plant, now that accurate timing signals are inexpensively available everywhere. How and why are power engineers using this capability? How can you implement precision time synchronization in your utility? And, does it matter what time zone you use to record event data? More