ABSTRACT Ensuring cost‐effective and reliable observability in power distribution networks is essential for the efficient operation of emerging smart grids. Micro‐Phasor Measurement Units ( μ PMUs) offer high‐resolution monitoring but incur significant installation costs, hindering widespread adoption. This paper provides an efficient and cost‐effective μ PMU deployment mechanism that ensures full topological observability. The suggested approach is tested on conventional IEEE 33‐bus, 69‐bus and 123‐bus distribution test systems, with four different placement scenarios investigated to assess various cost‐performance trade‐offs. The proposed technique significantly reduces the required amount of μ PMUs while maintaining full observability. The IEEE 33‐bus system reduces μ PMU count from 17 to 10, resulting in a 45.8% cost reduction. The 69‐bus and 123‐bus systems achieve cost savings of 27.1% and 30.5%, respectively. These findings illustrate the method's scalability and efficiency in reducing deployment costs while maintaining network observability. In addition to offering a useful tool for distribution network operators for planning real‐time monitoring with low‐cost sensing devices, the study assesses different solution scenarios (Cases I–IV) to demonstrate trade‐offs. Although the focus is on a single‐objective approach—minimising μ PMU installation costs under complete observability constraints—it also gives comparative insights to aid planning decisions across multiple cost‐performance situations.
Khanam et al. (Wed,) studied this question.