Optimal Probabilistic PMU Placement in Electric Distribution System State Estimation

This paper presents an algorithm for optimal placement of phasor measurement units (PMUs) in electric distribution networks to obtain predefined probabilistic relative errors in magnitude and angle for a distribution system state estimation (DSSE). The probabilistic relative error is introduced to consider the effect of failure probability (FP) and sending bad data probability (BDP) of PMUs. In this paper, the probabilistic relative error is defined as the expected value of the relative error values corresponding to the operating states of PMUs, which are calculated from Monte Carlo simulations. The binary particle swarm optimization (BPSO) is adapted to find the optimal number and locations of PMUs in a distribution network. The simulation results on 6-bus and 34-bus IEEE radial distribution networks show the effect of FP and BDP on the PMU placement as well as the performance of the proposed algorithm.