Hybrid Taguchi-based Technique for Micro-phasor Measurement Units Placement in the Grid-connected Distribution System

Abstract

The bidirectional flow of electrical power has aroused the need to monitor the distribution system (DS) in real time so as to avoid issues related to grid stability, which can cause cascade failure. A micro-phasor measurement unit (µ-PMU) is an equipment proficient in monitoring the DS in real time. A premeditated placement of µ-PMUs is therefore desired due to the technical and economic restraints. In the present paper, a novel hybrid technique that incorporates the Taguchi method (TM) and enhanced version of the binary particle swarm optimization (BPSO) by utilizing V sigmoid function and constriction factor is employed for the optimal location of µ-PMUs in the DS. The Taguchi scheme produces an improved population at the initialization stage, which finally eludes early convergence, and thus, it makes BPSO further robust. The study takes into account the optimal number of µ-PMUs required for the complete DS observability, economy, and the measure of reliability. The proposed method has been effectually applied to Indian 85-bus radial DS and standard IEEE distribution feeders, namely 34-nodes, 37-nodes, 69-nodes, and 123-nodes systems. A comparative analysis has been carried out to substantiate the superiority of the proposed method over the existing methods.