Optimal PMU placement to achieve complete observability of Idaho Power Co. System

This paper presents an effective practical approach for identifying optimal locations of Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) to achieve complete system observability. The approach, implemented in Physical and Operational Margins/Region Of Stability Existence (POM/ROSE) software, is based on automated iterative process of forming variables and constraints of a binary integer programming problem. The problem is then solved with standard linear programming solvers. The proposed approach was tested using Idaho Power Co. (IPC) system. It allows us to reduce the number of PMUs as compared to conventional techniques while maintaining complete system observability. A fast topological approach was also demonstrated and tested using IPC data in order to analyze the observability of the IPC network. The algorithm is fast and can be used in real-time as a part of bad data detection framework.