Critical bus ranking constrained optimal allocation of PMUs for network observability

Abstract The paper presents critical bus ranking to allocate Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) in network considering Integer Linear Programming (ILP). A Reactive Load Sensitive Index (RLSI) is proposed which depends upon reactive power change at load to find critical buses. Contingency cases like PMU loss or N-1 outages are chosen for PMU placement (OPP). Zero Injection (ZI) model is formulated to further minimize allocations in network for OPP. ZI modeling for normal and outage conditions is formulated and compared. Performance of observability of network is checked with Complete Network Observability Index (CNOI) approach. IEEE 14, 30 and 57-bus test cases are programmed for proposed method in MATLAB and are compared with existing techniques to present its efficacy.