Evaluating Performance of a Linear Hybrid State Estimator Utilizing Measurements From RTUs and Optimally Placed PMUs

Abstract

Synchro-phasor technology, using Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU), has improved the way power system data is collected for monitoring through state estimation. The placement of PMUs in a power system presents technical benefits, but it comes with high infrastructural costs. It is, therefore, necessary to install the minimum number of PMUs at optimal locations subject to power system observability, creating the Optimal PMU Placement Problem (OPPP). Some factors may be considered constraints in the OPPP, such as PMU outage. The main challenge with incorporating such constraints in the PMU placement problem is that the minimum number of PMUs required for system observation increases, contributing to the high infrastructural costs. This paper, therefore, proposes using a Linear Hybrid State Estimator (LHSE) that considers existing Remote Terminal Unit (RTU) measurements randomly distributed within the system and optimally placed Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) measurements. The proposed LHSE addresses challenges associated with nonlinearity in state estimation. The LHSE is also based on the Weighted Least Absolute Value (WLAV) criterion, considered robust and able to detect and discard bad data during the estimation process. The proposed LHSE can address state estimation reliability and resiliency, specifically the PMU outage contingency, by employing existing RTU measurements and optimally placed PMU measurements based on the Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) optimization technique. The proposed approach also leverages RTU and PMU measurements to address PMU loss contingency instead of utilizing PMU measurements only as in existing studies. Three test cases (IEEE 14 Bus, IEEE 30 Bus, and IEEE 57 Bus) are considered, with the simulations performed in MATLAB using MATPOWER data. The performance of LHSE is evaluated considering PMU/RTU measurements and PMU measurements only scenarios. Both RTU/PMU measurements present a lower Normalized Cumulative Error (NCE) performance index than PMU measurements only. In case of a single PMU outage, the proposed LHSE can estimate all states based on RTU/PMU measurements instead of only PMU measurements that fail.