Optimal PMU Placement for Outage Detection and Identification using Genetic Algorithm

Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) technology is increasingly used for real-time monitoring applications, especially line outage detection and identification (D&I) in the power system. Current outage D&I schemes either assume a full PMU deployment or a partial PMU deployment with a fixed placement. However, the placement of the PMUs has a fundamental impact on the effectiveness of the D&I scheme. Building on a dynamic relationship between the bus voltage phase angle and active power, we formulated the optimal PMU placement problem for outage D&I as an optimization problem readily solvable by a heuristic algorithm. We tested the formulation using a genetic algorithm and simulated outages of IEEE 39 bus system. The optimal placement found produces a better D&I result of single-line outages than a randomly scattered, tree-like, and degree-based placements.