State Estimation of Power

Systems
 Introduction

• Transmission system is under stress

 Generation and loading are constantly
increasing
 Capacity of transmission lines has not
increased proportionally
Therefore the transmission system must
operate with ever decreasing margin from its
maximum capacity
 I trodu tio …contd

• Operators need reliable information to operate

 Need to have more confidence in the values of certain variables

of interest than direct measurement can typically provide
 Information delivery needs to be sufficiently robust so that it is
available even if key measurements are missing
• Interconnected power networks have become more
complex
• The task of securely operating the system has become
more difficult
 Difficulties mitigated through use of state
estimation
• Variables of interest are indicative of:
 Margins to operating limits
 Health of equipment
 Required operator action

• State estimators allow the calculation of these variables of

interest with high confidence despite:
 measurements that are corrupted by noise
 measurements that may be missing or grossly inaccurate
 Objectives of State Estimation

• To provide a view of real-time power system conditions

 Real-time data primarily come from SCADA

 State Estimation supplements SCADA data: filter, fill,

smooth
 The main objective of state estimation is to obtain the
best possible values of the magnitudes of bus voltages
and their angles

 It requires the measurement of electrical quantities such

as real and reactive power flows in transmission lines
and real and reactive power injections at the bus
 O je ti es of State Esti atio ….cond

• To provide a consistent representation for

power system security analysis
On-line dispatcher power flow
Contingency Analysis
Load Frequency Control
• To provide diagnostics for modeling &
maintenance
(Diagnostics: Methods or systems for discovering the
cause of a problem)
 Power System State Estimation

• To obtain the best estimate of the state of the system based

on a set of measurements of the model of the system.
• The state estimator uses
 Set of measurements available from PMUs

 System configuration supplied by the topological processor,

 Network parameters such as line impedances as input.

 Execution parameters (dynamic weight-adjust e ts…

 Po er Syste State Esti atio … o t.

• The state estimator provides

 Bus oltages, ra h flo s, … state aria les

 Measurement error processing results
 Provide an estimate for all metered and unmetered
quantities

 Filter out small errors due to model approximations and

measurement inaccuracies
 Detect and identify discordant measurements, the so-
called bad data.
 Phasor measurement unit (PMU)
• A PMU or synchrophasor is a device which measures
the electrical waves on an electricity grid, using a
common time source for synchronization. Time
synchronization allows synchronized real-time
measurements of multiple remote measurement
points on the grid. In power engineering, these are also
commonly referred to as synchrophasors and are
considered one of the most important measuring
devices in the future of power systems.[1] A PMU can
be a dedicated device, or the PMU function can be
incorporated into a protective relay or other device.[
State variables and measurements of a
conventional state estimator
• State variables:
I. Node voltage magnitude and angle
II. Transformer complex turns ratio
• Measurements:
I. Node voltage magnitude and angle
II. Active and reactive power flow in branches
III. Magnitude and angle of transformer turns ratio
IV. Bus power injections
V. Bus reactive power injection
VI. Current magnitude in branches
VII. Current injection in in buses
 Observable & unobservable systems
• When the set of available real-time
measurements is sufficient to calculate the
state vector, the system is said to be
observable, otherwise it is unobservable
• When the system is unobservable, the system
has observable islands and unobservable
regions within the network
 Observable & unobservable
syste s…cont
• The unobservable regions can be estimated using
pseudo measurements, which are typically calculated
using historical data or short-term forecasts
• Pseudo measurements:
I. Specified or target bus voltage magnitude and angles
II. Target active power flow in branches
III. Reactive power limits at buses
IV. Target current magnitudes
V. Limits on transformer taps and phase shifts