Impact of Different Uncertainty Sources on a Three-Phase State Estimator for Distribution Networks

Distribution networks present their own features, significantly different from transmission systems features. For instance, loads are often unbalanced on the phases of the network. Moreover, the increasing amount of distributed generation, installed in an unplanned manner, is creating significant challenges. Such changing scenario imposes new operational requirements, such as distributed voltage control and demand side management. New performances are required for distribution system state estimators. In this paper, a study on the impact of different uncertainty sources on a state estimator designed for monitoring unbalanced distribution networks is presented. The impact of different measurement devices and levels of knowledge of the network behavior is analyzed and discussed using simulations performed on the 123-bus IEEE distribution network, which is commonly used as test network for this kind of study.