Optimal PMU Placement on Network Branches for Intentional Islanding to Prevent Blackouts

Power grids, throughout the world, are operated as large interconnected networks to ensure reliability of supply in an economic way. The interconnected nature of power network makes it vulnerable and sometimes even a small disturbance in the grid may propagate and result in a blackout. Investigations into major blackouts of the decade in the world have identified inadequate monitoring of the dynamic phenomena occurring in the power grid as the primary reason behind blackouts. To overcome this drawback, it was recommended in various investigation reports that Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) should be deployed throughout the grid. The investigation reports also recommended that even if a disturbance occurs, the system should be split into a number of independent islands to prevent propagation of fault and avoid blackout in the network. Earlier work on PMU assisted islanding assumed infinite channel capacity of PMUs available which is unrealistic. The primary objective of the present work is to show that the channel capacity of PMU should be an integral consideration while devising an intentional islanding methodology. The islanding algorithm is applied to IEEE 14 bus network which is installed with a minimum number of limited channel PMUs to make the system observable. The algorithm is able to split the IEEE 14 bus network in two independent, self sufficient islands. Keywords— Islanding, PMU placement, Power grid