A monitoring point selection approach for power distribution systems

A power distribution system is a system of systems which integrates a power grid and a SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) system. In this paper we discuss SCADA systems that support a future power grid which accommodates large quantities of PV (photovoltaic) power generation. First we clarify the communication capability required for a SCADA system to fully monitor the future power grid. The result suggests that a considerable improvement needs to be made. However, as such improvement incurs huge cost and thus will not happen instantly, it is necessary to adapt to situations where communication speed is limited. To this end we propose a method that selects monitoring points within the limitations. This selection process aims to cover sensing points where abnormal voltage is most likely to occur. We evaluate the proposed method to show its usefulness by simulation.