Optimal PMU placement for voltage control

This paper deals with the optimal phasor measurement unit (PMU) placement problem. In large power system, it is costly to place too many PMUs to achieve real time global observability. In fact, system state can be well estimated by optimally placed limited PMUs' synchronous measurements. Based on the method of voltage control area division, a spectral clustering approach is proposed to divide the network into several zones. Probabilistic Load Flow (PLF) is implemented in the meantime to consider many uncertain scenarios of system operation. In this way, the voltage variation of buses in the same zone can possess close coherency under various operation conditions. Consequently, placing PMUs on the best voltage representative locations, namely central buses of each zone in spectral clustering can improve the voltage observability and controllability while effectively reducing the number of PMUs. Case studies on IEEE 14 bus and 39 bus system are presented.