A Cross-Domain Optimization Framework of PMU and Communication Placement for Multidomain Resiliency and Cost Reduction

Phasor measurement units (PMUs) play a crucial role in real-time monitoring and control of power grids. They rely on a communication network to transfer measurement data to the phasor data concentrator (PDC) for further processing and analysis. In this article, a resilient cross-domain PMU and communication link placement method for minimizing the overall installation cost of the wide-area measurement system (WAMS) is proposed. The main idea is to break down the barrier between the power grid domain and the communication domain and consider the impact of one when designing the other. The PMU placement in the power grid domain takes into account the cost of communication links by generating multiple solutions with equally minimum PMU costs for communication link placement evaluation. On the other hand, the communication link placement problem reduces the cost by customizing the routing policies based on the different roles of PMUs in grid observability. The proposed WAMS design is capable of withstanding any single component failure in the power domain (PMU failure or power branch failure) or in the communication domain (communication link failure or PDC failure). The numerical study on the IEEE 57-bus system reveals that the developed cross-domain optimization framework can significantly reduce the overall installation cost of WAMS while attaining multidomain resiliency.