Optimal multistage scheduling of PMU placement: An ILP approach

This paper addresses various aspects of optimal phasor measurement unit (PMU) placement problem. We propose a procedure for multistaging of PMU placement in a given time horizon using an integer linear programming (ILP) framework. Hitherto, modeling of zero injection constraints had been a challenge due to the intrinsic nonlinearity associated with it. We show that zero injection constraints can also be modeled as linear constraints in an ILP framework. Minimum PMU placement problem has multiple solutions. We propose two indices, viz, BOI and SORT, to further rank these multiple solutions, where BOI is Bus Observability Index giving a measure of number of PMUs observing a given bus and SORT is System Observability Redundancy Index giving sum of all BOI for a system. Results on IEEE 118 bus system have been presented. Results indicate that: 1) optimal phasing of PMUs can be computed efficiently; 2) proposed method of modeling zero injection constraints improve computational performance; and 3) BOI and SORT help in improving the quality of PMU placement.