Multi-objective Discrete Artificial Bee Colony Based Phasor Measurement Unit Placement for Complete and Incomplete Observability Analysis

Abstract

The paper presents a multi-objective discrete artificial bee colony (DABC)-based optimization algorithm for deciding placement sites for phasor measurement units (PMU) in a power system for both complete and incomplete observability studies. The influence of depths of unobservabilities of some of the buses on the number of optimal PMU placement sites is investigated in this study. Limited availability of communication facilities around the power network is considered as constraints in the optimization problem. The simultaneous optimization of the two conflicting objectives such as minimization of the number of PMUs and minimization of the number of unobserved buses are performed, and the Pareto optimal solutions are obtained using the non-dominated sorting DABC with crowding distance mechanism. The formulation is extended to solve the pragmatic-phased installation of PMUs for complete observability studies. The performance of the suggested approach is tested on three IEEE test systems. The results obtained demonstrate the technique that provides utilities with systematic approaches for incrementally placing PMUs in the best possible way, thereby cushioning their cost impact.