Realistic Approach for Phasor Measurement Unit Placement: Consideration of Practical Hidden Costs

This paper presents a realistic cost-effective model for optimal placement of phasor measurement units (PMUs) for complete observability of a power system considering practical cost implications. The proposed model considers hidden or otherwise unaccounted practical costs involved in PMU installation. Consideration of these hidden but significant and integral part of total PMU installation costs was inspired from practical experience on a real-life project. The proposed model focuses on the minimization of total realistic costs instead of a widely used theoretical concept of a minimal number of PMUs. The proposed model has been applied to IEEE 14-bus, IEEE 24-bus, IEEE 30-bus, New England 39-bus, and large power system of 300 buses and real life Danish grid. A comparison of the presented results with those reported by traditional methods has also been shown to justify the effectiveness of the proposed model with regard to its realistic and practical nature.