Power System Operation and Planning

Lecture - Introduction to State Estimation

Abdul Basit
US Pakistan Centre for Advanced Studies in Energy (USPCAS-E)
University of Engineering & Technology (UET), Peshawar

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Complications in Power System Operation

• Reasons for increasing stress on transmission system

– Generation and loading are constantly increasing
– The transmission capacity has not increased proportionally
– Therefore the transmission system must operate with ever
decreasing margin from its maximum capacity
• Complexity of power system have increased with
interconnections
• Overall security of the power system have reduced

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Power System Operation interests

• Variables of interest are indicative of

– Margins to operating limits
– Health of equipment
– Required operator action

• Reliable information required

– 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
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Measured data required for Power System Operation
• Voltage magnitude at each bus
• Current flow magnitude & injection
• Active & reactive power
– Branches & groups of branches
– Injection at buses
– In switches
– In branches of unknown impedance
• Transformers
– Magnitude of turns ratio
– Phase shift angle of transformer
– Tap position
• Synchronized phasors from Phasor Measurement Unit
(PMU)

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Measurements correctness
• Imperfections in
– Current & Voltage transformer
– Transducers
• A/D conversions
• Tuning
– RTU (remote terminal unit) Data storage
– Rounding in calculations
– Communication links
• The measurements then result in uncertainties
• Due to imperfections in SCADA system the
measurements will be collected at different points in
time, time skew.

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Why State Estimation?

• If several measurements are missing how long to

wait for them?

• Fortunately, not a problem during quasi-steady state

• 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

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State estimation – Objectives

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

– Real-time data primarily come from SCADA
– State estimation supplement SCADA data: filter, fill,
smooth.
• 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

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Power system state estimation

• The state estimator is an integral part of the overall

monitoring and control systems for transmission networks.
• Provides 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
• Information from the state estimator flows to control centers
and database servers across the network.

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Power system state estimation
• The State estimator provides
– Node voltage – Voltage magnitude, Phase angle
– Transformer turn ratios – Turn ratio magnitude, Phase shift
angle
– Complex power flow – Active & Reactive power flow
• Provide an estimate for all metered and unmetered
quantities.
• Filter out small errors due to model approximations
and measurement in accuracies;
• Detect and identify discordant measurements, the so-
called bad data

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Power system state estimation - Problem in
finding system state

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Power system state estimation

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Example

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Example

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Example

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State estimation VS load flow analysis

• State estimation
– Power system monitoring and control in real time can
be done with the help of state estimator program, by
periodically computing an estimate of the operating
state of the sub network of interest there by produces
an approximate model of the true operating state of
the system.
• Load flow analysis
– It used to analyze each contingency case or situation
of power imbalance (due to forecasting error); to
obtain complete and accurate solution of complex bus
voltages at system buses.

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Power system state estimation

• We generally cannot directly observe the state

– But we can infer it from measurements
– However, the measurements are noisy
(How can we see behind the noise?)
• We need to generate the best guess for the state
given the noisy measurements we have available.
• The state is quasi static, analyzed as series of data
• The estimation is based on a snapshot or scan of
measurements (assumed to be synchronized)
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State measurement
• Measurements were used to calculate the angles at
different buses by which all unmeasured power flows,
loads, and generations can be calculated.
• If we can use measurements to estimate the “states” of
the power system, then we can go on to calculate any
power flows, generation, loads, and so forth that we
desire.
• We need to generate the best guess for the state given
the noisy measurements we have available.
• This leads to the problem how to formulate a “best”
estimate of the unknown parameters given the
available measurement.

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Measurement model

• How to determine the states (x) given a set of

measurements (z)?
zj = hj(x) + ej
known unknown unknown
• Where
– x is the true state vector [V1,…Vk, Θ2,… Θk]
– zj is the jth measurement
– hj relates the jth measurement to states
– ej is the measurement error

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Approached for State Estimation

• The traditional methods most commonly

encountered criteria are
– The Maximum likelihood criterion
– The weighted least-squares criterion
– Minimum variance method

• Non traditional methods like

– Evolutionary optimization techniques like Genetic
Algorithms, Differential Evolution Algorithms etc.

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Approached for State Estimation
• Maximum likelihood method
– Maximizing the probability that the estimate equals to the true state
vector x

• Weighted least square method (WLS)

– Minimize the sum of the weighted squares of the estimated
measurements from the true state

• Minimum variance method

– Minimize the expected values of the sum of squares of the deviations
of the estimated components of the state variable vector from the
corresponding component of the true state vector

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Maximum likelihood method

• Probability of attaining actual measurements depends on the

random error in the measuring devices or estimation of
unknown parameters
• Procedure
– Choose the estimate that increases the probability
– Probability Density Function (PDF) of the random errors in the
measurement
– If the distribution is Gaussian the same estimation formula can be
used for ‘weighted least square’
• Measurement error

Z(meas) = Z(true) + η

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Maximum likelihood method
• Probability density function of η

– σ is the standard deviation

– σ^2 is the variance of random number
– PDF(η) describes the behavior of η
• Large value ‘σ’ shows the relatively inaccurate
measurement (poor quality measurement device) and
small value denotes a small error spread (high quality
measurement device)
• Normal distribution is commonly used for modeling
measurement errors since it is the distribution that will
result when many factors contribute to the overall error
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Error characteristics

• The errors in the measurements is the sum of several

stochastic variables
– CT/VT, Transducer, RTU, Communication…

• The errors is assumed as a Gaussian Distribution with

known deviations (σj)

• The errors are also assumed to be independent

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Error characteristics

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Example – Maximum likelihood concept

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Example – Maximum likelihood concept

• Maximizing the probability that observed measurement will

occur

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Example – Maximum likelihood concept
• Maximizing the PDF will also maximize the Ln of PDF

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WLS state estimation

• Fred Schweppe introduced state estimation to power

systems in 1968.
• He defined the state estimator as “a data processing
algorithm for converting redundant meter readings
and other available information into an estimate of
the state of an electric power system”.

zj = hj(x) + ej
known unknown unknown

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WLS state estimation

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WLS state estimation

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WLS state estimation

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WLS state estimation

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WLS state estimation

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Example

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Example

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Example

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Example

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Example

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Example

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Example

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Example

• If meter 3 is superior in quality

– M13 will provide reading closer to the true power flowing
on line

• Convergence matrix

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Example

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Example

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