Distribution System State Estimation to Support Coordinated Voltage-Control Strategies by Using Smart Meters

In this paper, a novel distribution system state estimation method based on the information provided by smart meters to support coordinated voltage control strategies in real time is presented. Because the measurement redundancy in a distribution system is very low compared with the transmission system, the proposed method is able to mitigate the effects of temporal communication link failures, thanks to the combination of the Weighted Least Square method and the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm with a new power flow formulation using the available information from the smart meters. The test to validate the method and show its robustness was made for three representative different systems: the IEEE 30-bus and 57-bus systems, and a 30 smart home LV distribution system. To illustrate the applicability of the proposed method, a real-time digital simulator for smart distribution power grids with a coordinated voltage control system is used. The results show that the proposed method is in effective estimating the missing values in the case of communication problems between smart meters and the coordinated control system allowing the use of central voltage control strategies in real time.