Enhancing the Observability of Traditional Distribution Grids by Strategic Meter Allocation

Recent technological developments have facilitated the emergence of smart grids. In the smart grid perspective, metering and communication functionalities of the grid are greatly enhanced, thus boosting its observability and load management capabilities. This is an ideal scenario which is frequently encountered in contemporary literature. Unfortunately, in reality, operational and financial reasons have considerably obstructed the smart grid implementation. As such, current distribution grids still operate with reduced observability, implying that grid operators may have inadequate knowledge of load distribution in their networks, especially in real time. In this paper, the aforementioned problem is tackled by installing few measurements at strategic locations in low voltage distribution grids. By exploiting these strategic measurements, consumer load profiles, and state estimation techniques, the load distribution is approximated. As a result, the awareness of existent excess capacity in concurrent grids is augmented.