Meter Placement for Real-Time Monitoring of Distribution Feeders
Mesut E. Baran Jinxiang Zhu
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695
Abstract This paper identifies the data requirements for
real-time monitoring and control of distribution
systems. It points out that in addition to having
supervisory control and data acquisition on switches
and control equipment, methods are needed to obtain
an accurate estimation of data needed for feeder
automation functions. A meter placement method is
proposed for this purpose. It is shown that the
measurements from such a metering scheme can be
used with a state estimator to provide the real-time
data needed for real-time monitoring of distribution
system.
Key Words: Distribution Systems, State Estimation,
Real-time monitoring.
I. INTRODUCTION
Utility interest in Distribution Automation (DA)
for monitoring and control of various devices at the
substation and at the feeder level is continuously
growing since the early demonstration projects
indicated its feasibility and potential benefits. As
utilities enter the implementation phase, the selection,
prioritization, and integration of automation functions,
such as feeder switching for restoration and reconfigu-
ration, volt/var control, and load management,
become more important [1,2]. However, methods for
obtaining the real-time data needed for on-line
implementation of these automation functions has not
yet received proper attention.
Early demonstration projects focused on
technological feasibility of the individual DA functions
and the data required for these functions are either
directly measured in real-time or obtained from
historical load data [3,4]. New methods proposed for
implementation of these DA functions assume the
availability of the required real-time data [5-81. Recently
new methods, such as short-term load forecasting [9],
power flow [lo], and state estimation [ll],have been
proposed to obtain the necessary real-time data, mainly
the load data.
The next section of this paper looks at some of the
most commonly implemented DA functions and
identifies their real-time data requirements. It points
0-7803-2663-6195$4.00 0 1995 IEEE
Arthur W. Kelley
out that real-time measurements such as voltage,
currents, and power flows taken from various points in
the system are needed for distribution system
monitoring and control. In section three, real-time data
processing methods are reviewed and the advantages of
State Estimation (SE) method is outlined. In section
four, a meter placement method is proposed for
placement of the meters needed to obtain the real-time
measurements for SE. Test results and conclusions are
presented in sections five and six, respectively.
11. REAL - TIME DATA REQUIREMENTS FOR DA
Real-time data required for real-time monitoring
and control of a distribution system is mainly
determined by the functions to be automated in the
system. Economic considerations usually put limits on
the number of the functions that can be automated.
Table 1 shows the commonly selected functions [2,3].
Table 1: Commonly Selected DA functions
5 u bs t a t i on Au t v m a t i on Feeder Automation
Fault location and isolation Fault location and isolation
Service restoration Feeder Kestorntion
Trfmr. load balancing Feeder Reconfiguration
Power factor control Volt/Var Control
Data requirements for the functions listed in Table
1 can be grouped as follows:
(i) Status of Switches: Status of circuit breakers at the
substation needs to be monitored and controlled for
fault detection and isolation a t substation level.
Similarly, status of switches on feeders, such as line
reclosers, and sectionalizers need to be monitored and
controlled for fault detection and isolation. Switch
status information is also used in determining the
topology of the system in real-time. This topology
information is used by other control functions.
(ii) Status andfor Setting of Control Devices: Settings of
regulating transformers and capacitor banks at the
substation, and settings of voltage regulators and
capacitor banks on the feeder are also needed to
determine the current operating point of the system
and the possible control actions.
228
(iii) Real-Time Load Data: Real-time load data needed
for implementation of the control functions listed in
Table 1 is identified as follows:
a) Transformer load balancing: total load supplied to
each feeder at the substation is needed so that the
loading of transformers at the substation can
adjusted as desired.
b) Feeder contingency analysis: power or current flows
at the switch points are needed to determine feeder
restoration and reconfiguration schemes. This data
determines the total load in each section of the
feeder and is used to compare various load transfer
options.
Volt/var control and load control: (actualload profile
(i.e., distribution of total load to distribution
transformers) is needed. Effective volt/var and load
control schemes depend very much on the accurate
estimation of load distribution alortg the feeder [3,4].
This brief summary of real-time data requirements
for individual DA functions can be used to hetermine
the overall real-time data requirements of a DA
implementation once the DA functions are selected.
Among the DA functions, the subslation automation
usually takes the highest priority. The feeder switching
functions take the second, and volt/var the third
priority. Load management is usually considered
separately, although its effective implementation
depends on the amount of real-time load data
available, and thus should be integrated with the other
DA functions.
111. REAL-TIME DATA PROCESSING METHODS
Meters and monitoring devices need to be placed
at various points in the system and integrated in a
SCADA system so that the real-time data obtained from
these devices can be communicated! to the dispatch
center. Unfortunately, economics put very strong limits
on the scale of such SCADA systems in distribution
system monitoring and control applications. Table 2
shows devices that would be under SCADA in a large
scale DA implementation.
Table 2: Devices under SCADA
Transformers Few Sectionalizers
CaDacitor Banks
I
Load
Note that only a small percentage of switches on a
feeder are put under SCADA. Voltage regulators, and
capacitor banks are not usually monitored either. Not
included in the table is also the data acquisition needed
to determine the real-time load di:jtribution in the
system. Conventionally, load data i:; obtained solely
based on historical data collected by utilities about their
customer loads. Although this data is sufficient for
planning purposes, it may not be accurate enough for
real-time monitoring and controll functions. As
229
demonstration projects indicated [4], detailed load data
- preferably power supplied to each distribution
transformer and its sensitivity with respect to the
voltage - need to be closely estimated for effective
volt/var control.
Short term load forecasting methods can be used
to improve the estimate of the load data [6,10].
Unfortunately, forecasting methods can give accurate
results when the loads are aggregated, such as the total
load. It is statistically much more difficult to forecast
individual loads accurately. For on-line applications,
voltage and power measurements need to be used to
check the validity of the forecasted load and adjust the
loads accordingly.
One of the adjustment methods is based on power
flow analysis. Actual measurements are used to scale
the forecasted loads so that the power flow analysis
results, based on this load distribution, match the
measurements [ 101. Note that this procedure assumes
that the measurements are perfect. As more real-time
measurements become available, more general
methods are needed to further correct the forecasted
load distribution.
State Estimation (SE) is an analysis tool that gives
"the best estimate" of the operating point (hence the
load distribution) for a given set of measurements.
Currently, there are state estimators used at transmis-
sion level and these methods have been extended for
state estimation in distribution systems [ll].For a "good
estimate," state estimation needs real-time voltage,
current, and/or power measurements from various
points along the feeder. SE can then check the validity
of the forecasted load and make the necessary
corrections to improve the accuracy of the load data.
Besides providing a more reliable real-time load
data for feeder automation functions, SE can also be
used to check the consistency of the measurements and
the network model and hence provide data for the
following real-time monitoring functions.
i) Switch Status Monitoring: Since most of the
switching in a distribution system is done manually
and not telemetered, SE can help the dispatchers to
keep the network topology information up-to-date by
detecting the status changes in switches.
To illustrate the process, consider the small radial
feeder in Fig.1. As Fig.1 illustrates, we can define a zone
for each switch in a radial feeder: it is the part of the
feeder between the switch and its downstream
neighbors. Similarly, meters placed in a feeder divide
the feeder into meter zones, as illustrated in Fig.1 also.
By using SE, the total load in each switch zone can be
estimated with a certain accuracy, for example by 20%.
When the status of a switch changes, for example SW2
in Fig.1 opens, the measurement from mo will change
and this change will be approximately equal to the total
load in switch zone SW2. Since we have a good
estimation of this load from SE performed before
switching, by comparing this value with the change in
the measurement we can detect that indeed it was the
switching of SW2 that caused the change in
measurement mg. This type of consistency check can
easily be generalized for detecting changes in switch
status in a given feeder.
zone mO
zone m l = zone swl
Figure 1: Zones defined by switches and meters in a
feeder
ii) Locating Faults: The pre-fault and post-fault load
distribution data from SE can also be used to identify
the protection device (fuse or recloser) that operated to
isolate a fault. To illustrate the procedure, consider
Fig.1 again and assume that a fault occurred in zone
SW2 and SW2 opened to isolate the fault. Since
initially it is not known which switch opened, locating
the fault becomes detecting the wrong switch status of
SW2. Hence, the procedure outlined above for
correcting the switch status can be applied to detect the
switch that has opened to isolate the fault.
iii) Monitoring the Operation of Control Devices: Any
change in the status of a capacitor bank, a voltage
regulating transformer or a third party generation unit
will affect the operation of a feeder appreciably. By
measuring appropriate quantities in a feeder, SE can
detect the changes in the status of these devices. For
example, in the feeder of Fig.1, we can detect switching
of the capacitor bank by using m2. Because, wher, the
capacitor bank switches, the reactive power flow
measurement of m2 will change by an amount equal to
the switched kVar capacity of the bank.
IV. METER PLACEMENT FOR SE
The main goal of meter placement is determining
the number, place, and type of meters that needs to be
placed on a given feeder such that the SE with these
measurements will have the desired performance as
outlined in the previous section. However, as pointed
out before, the cost considerations usually limit the
number of meters that can be placed on distribution
feeders; usually below the minimum needed for state
estimation (i.e., the system won't be observable by
using the actual meters alone). To overcome this
observability problem, forecasted load data needs to be
added as pseudo-measurements. Therefore, the main
goal of meter placement in distribution systems
becomes supplementing the forecasted load data with
real-time measurements such that the SE with these
measurements will satisfy the performance
requirements outlined in previous section.
Meter placement is a complex problem. This is not
only due to size of the problem (number of choices
available), but also often due to the conflicting
requirements between the SE performance and the cost
of the measurement system necessary to achieve the
230
desired performance. Here, rather than adopting a
comprehensive formulation of this problem, such as
the one developed for transmission systems [15], we
developed a heuristic approach based on the following
observations:
01: Since the automation functions to be implemented
are usually prioritized as described in section 2, we
don't have to estimate all the quantities with the same
accuracy. For example, based on the performance
requirements outlined in previous section, power
flows at switching locations need to be estimated more
accurately than the individual loads, since while the
former data is needed for feeder switching the later data
is mainly for load monitoring and volt/var control
which are of lower ranking functions than that of
feeder switching in distribution automation. Therefore,
placing meters at switch locations is a good choice since
this will assure the most accurate estimation of power
flows at these points.
0 2 : In [ll],it is observed that SE uses the measurements
from the meters to "correct" loads in zones defined by
these meters in a radial feeder. Hence, placing meters in
such a way that they divide the feeder into meter zones
with similar total load distribution will assure that the
load estimation will be uniform, i.e., all the loads will
be estimated with similar accuracy. Also, the smaller
the load in zones the more accurate the load estimation
would be.
0 3 : Due to cost concerns, most of the measurements on
the feeder are of current type rather than power, except
the measurement at the substation end of the feeder.
Based on these observations, a simple set of rules
are developed for meter placement which can be
outlined as follows.
Rule Based Meter Placement Scheme
Rule 1: Put meters at all the main switch and fuse
locations that need to be monitored. These
measurements will provide data especially for feeder
switching and switch monitoring functions. In Fig. 1,
meters mo and m l correspond to the meters placed
according to this rule. One of these measurements
must be at the substation end and be of power (kW and
kVar) type, the other measurements can be of current
type.
Rule 2: Put additional meters along the feeder line
sections such that the total loads in the zones defined
by the meters are similar in magnitude. These
measurements can be of current type (if the cost of
metering is to be kept to a minimum). If there are spot
loads that are much bigger than the average load,
putting meters on these loads usually helps to achieve
this goal. The meter m2 in Fig.1 represents a meter
placed to satisfy this rule. These additional meters
improve the accuracy of load estimation.
Rule 3: Put meters on normally open tie switches that
are used for feeder switching. These meters can also be
of current type. Voltage measurements at both ends of
these tie switches are also desirable for monitoring and
control of volt/var control devices from the substation
and/or dispatch center [8]. Note that although these
meters won't contribute to the accuracy of SE while the
tie-switches are open, they will do so when these
switches are closed for feeder reconfiguration or
restoration.
The proposed method is a good compromise
between the accuracy and the computational simplicity;
it does not guarantee the optimality of the solution, but
it is computationally simple. The method selects both
the type and location of meters and tries to improve the
accuracy of the data needed for both the feeder
switching and the volt/vax control. We will refer to the
metering scheme this method produces as the basic
metering scheme. Note that this method is specially
tailored for radial feeders, a moire comprehensive
approach is needed for meshed networks.
Meter Ranking
Since in feeder operation, data needed for feeder
switching is considered more important than the load
distribution data, it may be hard to justify economically
placing all the meters the above method will suggest.
To help user eliminate some of the meters from this
basic metering scheme, we adapted Koglin's methad
[13] to rank these meters. The ranking will indicate the
order with which the meters are to be eliminated.
Ranking is based on the contribution of a
measurement to the accuracy of the quantities that we
want to estimate which are called interesting quantities,
y. For example, for feeder switching, functions, current
flows at switching locations are the interesting
quantities. For a given metering scheme z, we can use
SE to estimate these interesting quantities since they
can be expressed in terms of the system state variables, x
(usually chosen as the node voltage magnitudes and
angles) as
y* = &(x) i = l-..k. (1)
Accuracy with which the SE will estimate these
quantities can be expressed in terms of the variances of
these quantities,
O$ i=l...k.
To calculate these variances, we assume that the
measurement errors are normally distributed, i.e.,
zi = h(x) + ei i=l.-.m (2)
where h,(x) is the measurement functions that defines
measurement zi in terms of the state x, and e;
represents the measurement er Tor. Then, the
covariance matrix of interesting quantities can be
calculated from [14]
R, =F(H~R-'H)-~F~ (3)
23 1
where
W is the Jacobian of the measurement functions
F is the Jacobian of the functions of interesting
quantities, f(x),
W is a diagonal covariance matrix containing the
variances 02i of the measurements zi, i = 1,...,m.
2
Variances Oyi occupy the diagonal entries of the
covariance matrix ItY. The variances cr2i of the
measurements needed in above calculations can be
obtained by using measurement accuracies azi, since
Note that the smaller the variance of a quantity,
the more accurate the estimation of corresponding
interesting quantity will be. Hence, we define a system
accuracy index as:
and use it to rank the measurements in the basic
measurement set Z o . To determine the ranking,
measurements in Z o are eliminated one by one from
this set as follows. First measurements are taken out of
the available measurement list one at a time and the
resulting change in a ( z ) is calculated. The measurement
which causes the least change in a ( z ) is then actually
eliminated from the measurement set and the
elimination process is repeated until all the
measurements are eliminated and ranked.
User can use this ranking to reduce the meter
selection and to reach a compromise between the
performance and the cost; the basic metering scheme
will yield the best performance but will cost the most.
As one eliminates meters, cost will decrease, but the
performance will be sacrificed as the variances 4 i ' s
will get bigger. After selecting a reduced metering
scheme, a SE based simulation can be used to assess the
performance of the reduced measurement set. This
process is illustrated in the next section. A three-phase
SE should be used in simulations especially if the load
unbalance between the phases in the system is severe
(greater than 30%), otherwise balanced feeder
approximations can be used for three phase feeders, to
simplify especially the variance calculations.
V. TEST RESULTS
The proposed rule based meter placement method
is implemented on a DEC Workstation environment
and tested using four different size feeders. The results
will be pven here for an IIEEE test feeder.
The test feeder is a 34 node, 23 kV, 3-phase radial
E E E test feeder [12]. A one-line diagram of the feeder is
given in Fig.2 with the nodes renumbered to make the
illustration of the results easier. The feeder is pre-
dominantly three-phase with some single-phase
laterals and has both spot and distributed loads. For test
purposes, distributed line section loads are lumped
equally at terminal nodes of the line sections. This
 meter
0 0 switch
v) fuse

Figure 2: One-line diagram of the test feeder

nominal load data is used in simulations. The voltage
at the substation is held at the assumed measured
value of 1.0 p.u. Forecasted loads and actual
measurements are assumed to have 30% and 3%
accuracy, respectively. A three-phase SE with full
Jacobian [ll]is used for calculating the estimate of the
interesting quantities and their variances. Test results
can be summarized in the following two parts.
Basic Meter Placement
The test feeder is assumed to have three line
switches, three fuses and two tie switches as shown in
Fig. 2. Basic meter placement considers feeder
switching, switch monitoring, and load estimation.
Thus, currents through the six switches, yo - y5 in the
figure, and the loads are chosen as the interesting
quantities. By applying the rules of the proposed meter
placement method, meters are placed on the test feeder
as follows. First, six meters are placed at the switch/fuse
locations - meters mo - m5 in Fig.2 - using the first rule.
Using the second rule, two more meters (mg & m7 in
the figure) are placed on the feeder to distribute the
total load evenly into meter zones. Finally, to satisfy
the third rule, two more meters are placed at the open-
tie switch locations TSWl and TSW2 shown in Fig. 2.
All of these meters are of current type except mo which
measures the power supplied to the feeder at the
substation end. Meters are assumed to be measuring all
the phases individually.
For this basic metering scheme, variances of
interesting quantities of current flows at the switch
locations are given in Tb1.3 (except that of yo which is
always measured). Tb1.3 shows that for all yis o;i < o:i
where & is the variance of measurement yi. This
result indicates that, with this metering scheme,
currents through the six switches will be estimated
more accurately by using SE than by just directly
measuring them. Furthermore, variance calculations
for loads indicate that the ten biggest loads will be
estimated with accuracies ranging between 11% and
25%.
Reduced Metering Scheme
The goal here is to reduce the basic metering
scheme obtained above for the case in which feeder
switching and switch status monitoring are the only
objectives. Therefore, the interesting quantities are only
the current flows at switch locations, yo - y6.
For this case, the meters of the basic metering
scheme Zo are first ranked by using the proposed
ranking procedure. The results of this ranking is
summarized in Fig.4 which shows the order with
which the measurements are eliminated to determine
the ranking and the corresponding changes in the
system accuracy index. The elimination order is from
right to left, starting with m?
o ! ; : : : : : ; I
tmo tm3 t m 4 +mi +m2 +m6 +m5 t m 7
Figure 4:meter ranking with respect to accuracy index
The results in Fig.4 indicate that the first five
measurements have relatively low impact on the
system accuracy index, and hence they can be
eliminated. The variances of interesting quantities
corresponding to this new reduced metering scheme is
given in Tb1.4. Note that this reduced metering scheme
uses only three measurements (mol m3, m4) at switch
locations, and there are no measurements a t fuse
locations of y1, y2 and y5.
We tested the performance of this reduced
metering scheme as follows. First, since yo, y3, and y4
are measured but not y1, y2, and y5, the main concern is
about the estimation of these non metered interesting

Table 3: Variances with basic metering Table 4: Variances with reduced metering

232