Improving Situational Awareness in Power Grids of Developing Countries: A Case Study of the Nigerian Grid.

Electric power grids, especially in developing countries, are typically riddled with reliability issues, electricity theft, and vandalism exacerbated by minimal situational awareness available to operators. In this work, we propose a framework that optimizes situational awareness in power grid operations while integrating the need to prioritize economics as well. With the knowledge that limited economic resources could be a hindrance, the framework optimizes situational awareness by integrating budget over the specified time horizon. This hence provides a cost-efficient way towards a smarter and cyber-physical grid. The proposed framework is implemented by optimally placing phasor measurement units (PMUs) on the Nigerian 330KV, 28-bus transmission system, demonstrating the rolling horizon. Results show that situational awareness can be optimized with limited budget over a period of time, hence incentivizing power system stakeholders in developing countries.