A novel approach to optimal PMU placement for state estimation in electric power systems

This paper proposes a new method for the optimal placement of phasor measurement units (PMUs) in power systems. The proposed method minimizes the number of PMUs to be embedded in the network by leveraging virtual current injection measurements at zero-injection buses. This approach guarantees full system observability under normal and N -1 operating states without requiring conventional post-placement observability propagation rules. Unlike other approaches, the proposed optimization model uses equality constraints to account for the virtual measurements, thereby avoiding the need to change the network topology or use merging techniques to eliminate nodes with virtual measurements during the PMU placement process. The proposal’s effectiveness is demonstrated on several benchmark IEEE power systems and the Polish 2383-bus large-scale system, considering base topology cases and N -1 contingency scenarios.