Optimal Placement of Measuring Devices for Distribution System State Estimation Using Dragonfly Algorithm

This paper presents the challenges of optimal measurement devices placement (MDP) in the distribution system by considering the improvement of accuracy and speed for state estimation (SE) in the presence of distributed generations (DGs). We assumed that active and reactive power measurements (both injection and flow) with voltage magnitude measurements were used to estimate the power system’s state. The paper employed phase measurement unit (PMU) and smart meters, which are the two commonly used measuring devices. For numerical evaluation of the system, the power system states are based on the angle and magnitude of voltages at every bus. The issues normally experienced in the optimal measurement devices placement in distribution networks were investigated using the binary dragonfly algorithm (BDA), in this study. As a way forward to proffer solutions to these issues, a fair compromise between accuracy, speed, and the number of measurements (NoMs) was reached, and the proposed solution was tested in two different scenarios applied in the IEEE 33-bus distribution test system. The results illustrate that by increasing the accuracy, NoMs and the cost are going to rise as well. On the other hand, by escalating the speed, NoMs decrease and the accuracy falls dramatically.