Optimal PMU Placement to Ensure System

Observability under Contingencies

Ranjana Sodhi, Student Member, IEEE, S. C. Srivastava, Senior Member, IEEE, and S. N. Singh,
Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract Optimal placement of Phasor Measurement Units

(PMUs), to ensure complete observability of power system,
should not only be decided at the base case operating conditions
but also must consider the contingency cases. This paper presents
a simple and effective method for optimal placement of PMUs
considering critical contingencies. A voltage stability based
contingency screening method has been utilized to select critical
contingency cases. An Integer Linear Programming (ILP) based
algorithm for the PMU placement has been modified to
determine optimal PMU locations under the system intact and
the critical contingency cases. The proposed method is tested on
the IEEE 14-bus system, New England 39-bus system and
Northern Region Power Grid (NRPG) 246-bus Indian system and
the test results have been compared with three more modified
PMU placement methods viz. depth first search, direct spanning
tree and direct N-1 spanning tree methods.
Index TermsPhasor measurement unit (PMU), complete
observability, voltage stability based contingency ranking,
optimal PMU placement

I.INTRODUCTION

ITH the influx of phasor technology, significant

attention has been paid in exploring its application in
power system stability prediction, control and system fault
protection. The phasor quantities (voltage, currents, powers,
frequency etc.), derived from the output of PMUs, carry
significant information and can easily be utilized for different
power system problems [1]. The present and possible future
applications of the phasor measurement units have been well
documented in [2].
The first step in employing phasor technology, using
PMUs, is their optimal location in the power system in order
to fully observe the network, which is a prerequisite for an
efficient and accurate state estimation and control of the
power system. Two methods used to determine the system

Ranjana Sodhi (e-mail: rsodhi@iitk.ac.in) and S. N. Singh (e-mail:

snsingh@iitk.ac.in ) are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian
Institute of Technology Kanpur, India. (Tel. 91-512-25977874, Fax. 91-5122597009).
S. C. Srivastava (e-mail: scs@ece.msstate.edu) is a Visiting Faculty in the
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Mississippi State
University, USA (Tel. +662-325-2295), on leave from the Indian Institute of
Technology Kanpur, India.

978-1-4244-4241-6/09/$25.00 2009 IEEE

observability are the numerical observability and topological

observability based methods [3]. Numerical observability
based approach utilizes the information (or gain) matrix or the
measurement Jacobian reflecting the configuration of the
system and the measurement set. Conventionally, numerical
methods involve huge matrix manipulations and are
computationally expensive. Also, in case of large power
systems, the measurement matrix may become ill-conditioned.
Many optimal PMU placement techniques, based on this
concept, have been devised e.g. Simulated Annealing [4],
Tabu Search [5], Genetic Algorithm [6] based methods.
However, all these techniques, being iterative in nature,
require longer convergence time and their convergence
depend upon the initial guess. On the other hand, topological
observability based approaches utilize the graph theoretic
concept to find the optimal locations and, thus, to make the
system topologically observable. Few methods, based on this
concept, are Depth First Search [7], Spanning Tree based
method [8, 9], and Integer Linear Programming based
methods [10] etc. However, a literature survey reveals that, in
all the above mentioned methods, PMU placement has been
carried out assuming the power system to be in normal
operating state and, hence, the resulting optimal placement of
PMUs may not ensure complete system observability in case
of a contingency in the power system. Recently, in [16],
authors have considered single line outages, while placing the
PMUs for complete observability. However, this method has
used a binary search for the optimal PMU placement, which
makes the search very exhaustive.
This paper has proposed a modified topological
observability based PMU placement algorithm to ensure
complete system observability under critical contingencies.
An Integer linear programming based method for PMU
placement has been considered and its results have been
compared with the depth first search and two versions of the
spanning tree based methods. Authors are developing
algorithm for application of PMUs to the voltage stability
assessment and control. Hence, a voltage stability based
contingency ranking [11] has been carried out to screen few
critical contingencies, which have been considered in the
optimal PMU placement. The proposed method for the
optimal PMU placement has been tested on the IEEE 14-bus
system, New England 39-bus system and Northern Region

Power Grid (NRPG) 246-bus Indian system. The numerical

results show that the proposed method ensures full topological
observability of the power system not only under normal
operating conditions but also under critical contingency cases.

D
V

II.VOLTAGE STABILITY BASED CONTINGENCY RANKING

Voltage stability based contingency ranking method, based
on calculation of a Reactive Violation Index (RVI) and nose
point estimation [11], has been used in this work, which is
explained below.
The calculation of RVI is explained with the help of Fig. 1
where, denotes the system loading factor. Operating point
A denotes the nose point of the intact system and point B
denotes the post-contingency operating point with the same
loading parameter value as in case of point A. The reactive
violation index (RVI) for a contingency-i is defined as,
Nq

RVI i =

(Q

no
ji

Q max
)
j

3.

4.

where,
Q max
= Maximum limit on reactive power output of source-j.
j
Q no
ji = Reactive generation of jth Q-source with its Q limit
open, following a contingency-i at a point B in Fig. 1 (with the
same loading parameter value as in case of point A).
Nq = Number of reactive power sources violating their Q limit.

3
2

Curve 1: Post-contingency nose curve

Curve 2: Pre-contingency nose curve
Curve 3: Post-contingency nose curve with Q-limits open
Fig. 1 V- curves at critical load bus for

Q no
ji calculation. [11]

Further, the steps involved in the binary search algorithm

for screening and then ranking the contingencies are listed
below and explained with the help of Fig. 2.
1. Obtain saddle node bifurcation (maximum loading)
point for intact system by the continuation power
flow method. This is termed as 100% stressed case.
2. Run the post contingency load flows for all branch
outage cases at a stress level of say 70-90% (point B
in Fig. 2). Discard those contingencies for which load
flow solution is achieved and let UB be the set of
critical contingencies for which load flow did not
converge.

Fig.2 Binary search of post contingency nose point. [11]

(1)

j =1

0.7 to 0.9

5.

Run full AC load flow at another point C which is

mid point of base case loading A and loading B, for
all contingencies in set UB. Let the non converged
contingency cases in this case be UC and the set of
contingencies for which load flow converges be SC.
Repeat step 3 for a loading point D, for unsolved
contingencies UC contingencies and for another point
(say E) between B & C, for the solved contingencies
SC.
Form four groups of contingencies viz. group of
contingencies SE lying between point E & B, group
UE lying between C & E, group SD between D & C
and group UD lying between A & D. Contingencies
belonging to group UD are most severe.
6. Rank the contingencies within each group by
computing RVI values as defined in (1).
III.OBSERVABILITY ANALYSIS USING PMUS

Topological observability uses the graph theoretical

concepts to find the locations for the measurement placement
and thus, to make the system topologically observable. A brief
background of PMU based topological observability is given
as follows.
PMU based Topological Observability:
For making the system topologically observable using
PMUs, following simple rules are used,
1. If voltage phasor and current phasor at one end of a
branch are known, voltage phasor at the other end of
the branch can be calculated using Ohms law.
2. If voltage phasors at both the ends of a branch are
known, branch current can be calculated.
3. If there is zero injection bus without a PMU, whose
outgoing currents are known except for one, then the
unknown outgoing current can be calculated using
Kirchhoffs Current Law (KCL).
Based on these rules, two types of measurements can be
obtained from PMUs. The PMU bus voltage phasor and
outgoing currents from PMU bus are defined as direct
measurements and measurements obtained by utilizing the
rules (1-3) are defined as pseudo measurements. Using this
concept, many graph theoretical methods e.g. depth first

search, spanning tree based methods, integer linear

programming based method [7-10] have been suggested to
place PMUs in the system for ensuring the full topological
observability of the system. In this work, these methods have
been modified to determine optimal PMU locations under the
system intact and the critical contingency cases. The proposed
method is explained in the next section.

bus is formulated such that each bus gets topologically

observed. To illustrate the constraints, under system intact
condition, bus 1 is connected to bus 2, and 5. Therefore,
either a PMU must be placed at bus 1 or at bus 2 or at bus 5 to
make bus 1 observable. So, the constraint at bus 1 becomes,
f1 : x1 + x2 + x5 1
The complete ILP problem can be formulated as,

14

min :

IV. PROPOSED CRITICAL CONTINGENCY BASED PMU

PLACEMENT
In order to illustrate the effect of a contingency on system
topological observability and optimal placement of PMUs to
ensure the full observability, an Integer Linear Programming
(ILP) based PMU placement technique [10] has been used in
this work. A brief description of the method is given below.
A.Effect of Contingency on System Observability
The optimal PMU placement problem is binary in nature
where, objective is to minimize the total cost of installation of
PMUs, while making each node in the system observable. The
PMU placement problem can be formulated as an integer
linear program (ILP) as follows.
Let X be a vector consisting of binary decision variable xi,
defined as,

(5)

subject to:
f1 : x1 + x2 + x5 >=1;
f 2 : x2 + x1 + x3 + x 4 + x5 >=1;
f 3: x3 + x2 + x 4 >=1;
f 4 : x4 + x3 + x2 + x5 + x9 + x7 >=1;
f 5: x5 + x1 + x 2 + x 4 + x6 >=1;
f 6 : x6 + x5 + x11 + x12 + x13 >=1;
f 7 : x7 + x4 + x8 + x9 >=1;
f 8: x8 + x7 >=1;

(6)

f 9 : x9 + x 4 + x7 + x14 + x10 >=1;

f10: x10 + x9 + x11 >=1;

1 if PMU is placed at bus i

xi =
0 otherwise

f11: x11 + x10 + x6 >=1;

If PMUs are to be placed in an N bus system and cost of

placing a PMU at bus-i is Ci then the objective function can
be written as,

Ci xi

i =1

f12: x12 + x13 + x6 >=1;

f13: x13 + x12 + x14 + x6 >=1;
f14: x14 + x13 + x9 >=1;
xi = (0 / 1)

min

Ci xi

(2)

i =1

subject to constraints:
f j (X ) 1

(3)

xi = (0 / 1) binary variable

(4)

where,
C j : is the cost of PMU installation at j th bus. In the
present simulation, cost of installation of each PMU is
assumed to be equal as 1 pu. Thus, in (2) C j = 1.
f j : is the observability constraint at bus- j . The constraint

can be satisfied in two ways either by placing the PMU

directly over the bus or through the pseudo-measurement.
The above integer linear program can be explained with the
help of the IEEE 14-bus system. Fig. 3 shows a single line
diagram of the system. In the IEEE 14-bus system, the X
contains 14 binary decision variables and constraint at each

The solution of the above ILP, using CPLEX software [13],

is X * = {2,6,8,9} .
Further, to evaluate the influence of a contingency on PMU
based power system observability, voltage stability based
contingency analysis is carried out on the IEEE 14-bus system
using the method explained in [11]. The ranking results are
shown in Table I. For the IEEE 14-bus system, top 3
contingencies have been taken as the critical contingencies.
Assuming PMUs to be placed at optimal location {2,6,8,9},
in the event of an outage of the critical line 1-2, current
phasor measurement of line 1-2 provided by PMU at bus 2
gets lost and PMUs fail to observe node 1. Similarly, outage
of critical line 2-3, leaves node 3 unobservable. And, the
optimal scheme, in the event of the outage of line 1-5, still
observes all nodes of the IEEE 14-bus system. The analysis
clearly shows that the optimally placed PMUs in power
system, considering only the system intact conditions, fail to
ensure complete observability under contingency cases.
B. PMU placement under contingencies
In order to take critical contingencies into account, while
placing the PMUs optimally in the network for complete
observability, the power system can be considered as a graph

comprising of nodes and branches. The outage of critical

branch i j can be seen as an event resulting into a graph with
nodes i and j disconnected and with one branch less than the
original number of branches in the graph. Based on the above
concept, a pseudo-code for incorporating critical
contingencies in topological observability based PMU
placement methods, has been developed.

Start
Read N contingency list
Solve OPP for intact case
K=1

13
14

12

Create Kth contingency

11

G1

Update constraints

10

C3

6
1

C2

K = K+1

9
5

Does X
Satisfy new
constraints?

8
7
4

Formulate new
OPP and get X

N
3

G2

Is
K = N?

C1

Fig. 3 Single line diagram of the IEEE 14-bus system.

Stop

The proposed pseudo-code can be explained with the help

of integer linear programming based PMU placement method.
In order to incorporate the contingencies, the ILP based
method explained earlier in this section is modified and
flowchart of the proposed method is shown in Fig. 4. The
process is summarized as follows.
1. The voltage stability based contingency analysis is
carried out.
2. A list of critical contingency is prepared out of all
credible contingencies.
3. Optimal PMU locations are obtained using (2-4),
assuming power system to be in normal intact
condition, referred as ILP-1 solution.
4. The branch outage i j, out of critical contingency
list, in order of relative ranking, is created and
corresponding nodes i and j are assumed to be
disjoint.
5. The constraints in (3) are modified by assuming
nodes i and j as unconnected.
6. Check, if the optimal solution in step 3 satisfies the
new constraints. If yes, then create another
contingency and repeat step 4 5; else reformulate
the ILP with new constraints and solve to obtain the
new optimal solution, referred as ILP-2 solution.
7. Repeat steps 4 6 till all critical contingencies are
considered.
The final optimal solution so obtained ensures the complete
observability under the system intact and the critical
contingencies.

Fig. 4 Flowchart of modified ILP based optimal PMU placement

V.TEST RESULTS
The proposed method for optimal PMU placement has been
tested on the IEEE 14-bus, New England (NE) 39-bus system
[14] and Northern Region Power Grid (NRPG) 246-bus
Indian system [15]. First the voltage stability based
contingency analysis is carried out. All single line outages are
considered as credible contingencies and contingency ranking
results are obtained using the method based on RVI and
binary search [11]. For the IEEE 14-bus system and NE 39bus system, top 3 contingencies and for NRPG 246-BUS
system top 6 contingencies are considered to be critical as
listed in Table I. This is an arbitrary chosen number in the
present study and can be appropriately selected for a given
system.
TABLE I
RANKING OF CRITICAL CONTINGENCIES FOR THE TEST SYSTEM
IEEE 14New
Indian 246Indian 246Rank
bus
England 39bus system
bus system
system
bus system
(1-3)
(4-6)
1
1-2
16-19
105-245
166-173
2
2-3
6-31
75-91
188-190
3
5-6
19-20
116-229
121-122

The test results for the three systems are given as

following.
A.The IEEE 14-bus System
The ILP-1 solution, in normal state, is {2, 6, 8, and 9}. The
outage of line 1-2 is considered to be the first critical
contingency. The constraints are modified as,

f 1 : x1 + x 5 >=1;

TABLE II
OPTIMAL PMU PLACEMENT WITH CONTINGENCIES FOR IEEE 14-BUS SYSTEM
Case
Optimal Locations
No. of locations
Intact
2,6,8,9
4
Line 1-2 outage
4,5,6,8,9
5
Line 2-3 outage
4,5,6,8,9
5
Line 5-6 outage
4,5,6,8,9
5

f 2 : x 2 + x 3 + x 4 + x 5 >=1;
f 3 : x 3 + x 2 + x 4 >=1;
f 4 : x 4 + x 3 + x 2 + x 5 + x 9 + x 7 >=1;
f 5 : x 5 + x1 + x 2 + x 4 + x 6 >=1;
f 6 : x 6 + x 5 + x11 + x12 + x13 >=1;
f 7 : x 7 + x 4 + x 8 + x 9 >=1;
f 8 : x 8 + x 7 >=1;

(7)

f 9 : x 9 + x 4 + x 7 + x14 + x10 >=1;

f 10 : x10 + x 9 + x11 >=1;
f 11 : x11 + x10 + x 6 >=1;
f 12 : x12 + x13 + x 6 >=1;
f 13 : x13 + x12 + x14 + x 6 >=1;
f 14 : x14 + x13 + x 9 >=1;
x i = (0 / 1)

The optimal locations of PMUs, obtained at the system intact

condition, do not satisfy constraint f1 and, therefore, makes
bus 1 unobservable. The ILP-2 is formulated with the
modified constrains set (7) and the objective (5). The solution
of the ILP-2 is {4, 5, 6, 8 and 9}.
The second critical contingency, line 2 5 outage, is
created next and the constraint set (7) is modified. New
constraint set is given by (8) and is satisfied by the earlier
optimal solution.
f1 : x1 + x 5 >=1;
f 2 : x 2 + x 3 + x 4 >=1;
f 3 : x3 + x 2 + x 4 >=1;
f 4 : x 4 + x 3 + x 2 + x 5 + x 9 + x 7 >=1;
f 5 : x5 + x1 + x 4 + x 6 >=1;
f 6 : x 6 + x 5 + x11 + x12 + x13 >=1;
f 7 : x 7 + x 4 + x 8 + x 9 >=1;
f 8 : x8 + x 7 >=1;

(8)

f 9 : x9 + x 4 + x 7 + x14 + x10 >=1;

f10 : x10 + x 9 + x11 >=1;
f11 : x11 + x10 + x 6 >=1;
f12 : x12 + x13 + x 6 >=1;
f13 : x13 + x12 + x14 + x 6 >=1;
f14 : x14 + x13 + x 9 >=1;
xi = (0 / 1)

Similarly inclusion of the third critical contingency, line 2

3 outage, further modifies the constraints set (8) and the
solution of ILP-2 satisfies the new constraints. Thus, the
optimal locations of the PMU placement ensuring the
complete observability of the IEEE 14-bus system under
normal and the considered critical contingencies are {4, 5, 6,
8 and 9}. Table II shows optimal PMU locations in each
iteration of the modified ILP algorithm for the test system.

B.New England 39-bus System

New England 39-bus system [14] represents a reduced
model of the power system in New England. It has 10
generators, 19 loads, 36 transmission lines and 12
transformers. For this test system, three most critical lines,
listed in Table I, are considered for optimal PMU placement.
The base case ILP-1 results into 13 optimal PMU locations as,
X 1* ={2,6,9,10,13,14,17,19,20,22,23,25,29}. The outage of
*
line 16-19 modifies the constraints set and X 1 satisfies new
constraints. Line outage of 6-31 further modifies the
constraint set, as explained in Section IV B, which is not
satisfied by optimal solution of ILP-1. So, ILP-2 is formulated
and solved using CPLEX. Optimal PMU solution for each line
outage case is listed in Table III. The third critical
contingency i.e. outage of line 19-20, modifies the constraints
and new constraint set is satisfied by the earlier optimal PMU
placement solution. Finally, 14 PMUs listed in Table III
ensure complete topological observability under both system
intact as well as the critical contingency cases considered.

TABLE III
OPTIMAL PMU PLACEMENT WITH CONTINGENCIES FOR NE 39-BUS SYSTEM
No. of
Case
Optimal Locations
locations
Intact
2,6,9,10,13,14,17,19,20,22,23,25,29
13
Line 16-19
2,6,9,10,13,14,17,19,20,22,23,25,29
13
outage
Line 6-31
1,2,8,10,11,14,17,19,20,22,23,25,29,31
14
outage
Line 19-20
1,2,8,10,11,14,17,19,20,22,23,25,29,31
14
outage

C. Northern Region Power Grid 246-bus Indian System

The 246-bus NRPG network is the biggest among all five
regional electricity boards in India, comprising of the nine
states. It covers around 30% geographical area and 28%
population of India. A reduced representation of the NRPG
system has been considered, which consists of 246 buses (220
kV and 400 kV only), 376 branches (lines/transformers).
Table I lists the top 6 critical line outages considered for the
optimal placement of PMUs.
The modified ILP is tested on NRPG 246-BUS system and
Table IV shows optimal PMU bus locations for the intact case
and last iteration result of modified ILP algorithm. It has been
observed that intact condition of the system results in 70
optimal PMU locations in order to topologically observe the
system and inclusion of top 6 critical contingencies increases
the optimal PMU numbers by one and also changes their
optimal locations.

TABLE IV
OPTIMAL PMU PLACEMENT WITH CONTINGENCY FOR 246-BUS SYSTEM
No. of
Case
Optimal Locations
locations
6,7,11,24,29,34,35,40,42,45,48,54,55,5
7,61,62,63,65,69,73,74,76,80,83,91,93,
94,95,96,98,101,106,109,119,122,125,1
Intact
26,128,129,132,134,141,142,144,153,1
70
57,158,160,167,168,169,174,180,181,1
83,185,187,190,191,194,199,201,202,2
03,215,216,219,234,235,242
6,7,10,11,19,24,29,34,40,42,45,48,54,5
5,57,61,62,63,65,68,73,74,76,80,83,87,
91,93,94,95,98,101,106,116,117,121,12
Line 1212,125,126,129,132,134,141,142,144,15
71
122outage
3,157,158,160,167,168,174,180,181,18
3,185,187,188,190,191,194,199,201,20
2,203,215,216,219,234,235,242

The proposed pseudo-code is also tested for three more

topological observability based PMU placement methods
namely, Depth First Search (DFS), Direct Spanning Tree
(DST) based method, Direct N-1 Spanning Tree (DNST)
based methods. Same numbers of critical contingencies, as
listed in Table I, are considered for the three test systems and
the optimal PMU placement results considering the intact
condition of the system and the critical contingencies are
shown in Table V. Optimal number of PMU placement with
the DST method, in 14-bus system with contingencies, is less
than the proposed ILP. However in the other two systems, the
proposed ILP based method results in minimum number of
the PMU placement considering critical contingencies.
TABLE V
OPTIMAL PMU PLACEMENT RESULTS OF DIFFERENT METHODS
IEEE 14 Bus
NE 39 Bus
Indian 246 Bu
Method
w/o
w/c
w/o
w/c
w/o
w/c
DFS [8]
6
5
16
16
88
89
DST [9]
4
4
10
14
65
75
DNST [9]
8
7
18
14
144
146
ILP proposed
4
5
13
14
70
71

w/o = without contingencies

w/c = with contingencies

DFS = Depth First Search

DST = Direct Spanning Tree

DNST = Direct N-1 Spanning Tree

VI.CONCLUSION
The optimal location of PMUs to ensure complete
observability of a power system must consider the
contingency cases. This paper has suggested a simple
modified Integer Linear Programming based method for the
optimal placement of PMUs to ensure complete topological
observability of the system under intact and critical
contingency cases. The proposed method makes use of a
voltage stability based contingency ranking method and a
graph theoretic approach to modify the constraints under
contingencies in the ILP. The proposed method has been
tested on the IEEE 14-bus system, New England 39-bus
system and NRPG 246-bus system and its results have been
compared with three other topological observability based
methods, viz. DFS, DST and NDST methods. The proposed

method is quite effective and simple to adopt. In relatively

bigger systems, it has resulted in minimum number of optimal
locations of PMUs as compared to those obtained with the
other three methods.
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BIOGRAPHIES
Ranjana Sodhi is presently a doctoral student in Indian Institute of Technology
Kanpur. Her research interests include wide area monitoring systems, PMU
applications in power systems, and voltage stability.
S. C. Srivastava received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Indian
Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India. He is presently a Visiting Professor in
the ECE Department at Mississippi State University, USA on leave from the
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India. His research interests include
energy management system, power system optimization, power system security,
stability and control, and technical issues in electricity markets.
S.N. Singh received M.Tech and Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Technology
Kanpur, India. Presently, he is Professor in the Department of Electrical
Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. His research interests
include power system restructuring, FACTS, power system optimization &
control, security analysis, power system planning etc. He is a Fellow of IETE
(India) and senior member of IEEE.