Optimal PMU Placement Techniques: A Detailed Review and Case Study on the Indian Utility 62 Bus System

Nisha Sharma, Nisha Sharma, Priti Prabhakar, Avneesh Verma

Abstract


Optimal placement of Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) is important for power system observability and reliable monitoring. The existing placement approaches emphasize full observability with minimum PMUs to achieve a cost-effective solution; however, the direct observability of critical buses and redundancy under contingency conditions has received limited attention. Consequently, minimum-PMU solutions may become vulnerable under PMU or transmission line outage conditions. In this paper, an attempt has been made to improve the system redundancy, security and reliability along with detailed, comprehensive review of existing Optimal PMU Placement (OPP) methods.  A comparative analysis based on cost effectiveness, reliability, critical bus observability, system redundancy, and overall system security has also been carried out. A novel Depth of Redundancy (DOR) metric is introduced to quantify bus-level redundancy, and the System Observability Redundancy Index (SORI) is utilized to evaluate overall system redundancy. The framework is validated using IEEE 30 and 57 bus systems and implemented on the Indian Utility 62 bus system as a detailed case study. The results demonstrate that Integer Linear Programming (ILP) achieves cost-effective observability solution, whereas Depth First Search (DFS) achieves the highest observability redundancy and strong contingency resilience with a greater number of PMUs. Simulated Annealing (SA), however, achieves comparatively higher SORI and DOR values, thereby providing a balanced trade-off between cost-effectiveness, redundancy and monitoring. The study highlights that redundancy-oriented PMU placement significantly enhances monitoring reliability and contingency preparedness for practical utility-scale applications. 


Keywords


Phasor measurement units (PMUs), optimal PMU placement (OPP), system observability redundancy index (SORI), synchrophasor technology

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References


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DOI (PDF): https://doi.org/10.20508/ijsmartgrid.v10i3.620.g432

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