Optimal PMU location in power systems using MICA

This study presented a modified imperialist competitive algorithm (MICA) for optimal placement of phasor measurement units (PMUs) in normal and contingency conditions of power systems. The optimal PMU placement problem is used for full network observability with the minimum number of PMUs. For this purpose, PMUs are installed in strategic buses. Efficiency of the proposed method is shown by the simulation results of IEEE 14, 30, 57, and 118-bus test systems. Results of the numerical simulation on IEEE-test systems indicated that the proposed technique provided maximum redundancy measurement and minimum request of PMUs so that the whole system could be topologically observable by installing PMUs on the minimum system buses. To verify the proposed method, the results are compared with those of some recently reported methods. When MICA is used for solving optimal PMU placement (OPP), the number of PMUs would be usually equal to or less than those of the other existing methods. Results indicated that MICA is a very fast and accurate algorithm for OPP solution. (C) 2015 Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).