Critical Elements Based Optimal PMU Placement Considering Substation Coverage

Abstract

The Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) is becoming the most prominent tool for power system applications like power system operation, control, and protection. In a robust and accurate wide-area measuring system, the PMU should observe not only the elements in its substation but also the critical elements and its incident busses. As the PMU cost limits their deployment, they must be installed optimally considering the substation installation and the critical lines in the power system. This paper introduces a new Optimal PMU Placement algorithm considering the optimal substations and the critical elements. This has been done based on the assumption that there must be a PMU in each constructed substation (optimal substation). This will assure the observability of all the elements in the substation. The proposed method has been tested on some standard test systems and then applied to a practical regional Indian grid.