Optimal placement of wide area monitoring system components in active distribution networks

Abstract

Abstract The optimal placement of micro-Phasor Measurement Units (µPMUs) reduce the cost of wide area monitoring system (WAMS) in active distribution networks (ADNs); therefore, it is becoming a popular research topic. However, µPMUs alone cannot minimize the WAMS cost. An appropriate location of Phasor Data Concentrator (PDC) and a fiber optic communication link (CL) that transfers data from µPMUs to PDCs also need to be optimized. Hence this paper proposes a hybrid algorithm that determines the optimal cost-effective solution of the placement problem of µPMUs, PDC, and CL. The proposed algorithm uses the graph theory and binary integer linear programming (BILP) with the constraints of distribution generation (DG) presence, regular network reconfiguration, and maximizing system redundancy. The proposed algorithm is tested on IEEE 69 bus, IEEE 123 bus, and 345 bus active distribution system. The results obtained show the reduction in cost mainly through the CL and optimal placement of µPMUs in decentralized WAMS.