A Comparative Analysis of μPMU Placement for Active Distribution Network’s Observability

Abstract

Various Optimal PMU Placement (OPP) formulation have been proposed in the literature for topological observability of a power transmission system. This paper assesses the suitability of such methods for the placement of Distribution-Level Phasor Measurement Units (known as D-PMUs or μPMUs) in the active distribution network (ADN). The various OPP models such as cost minimization, channel limitation, effect of zero injection buses, single PMU loss, single line outage, multistage placement, maximization of measurement redundancy are framed and solved using Integer Linear Programming (ILP) for various ADNs such as, IEEE 33, 69 and 123 bus system. The ratio of the number of buses and μ-PMUs, system measurement redundancy, depth of unobservability are considered as performance indices to compare various OPP solutions in case of normal operation, network reconfiguration and island formation.