Abstract

The rapid expansion of bulk power grids need full monitoring, operation, protection and control. To tackle these challenges, Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) provides the real time monitoring which improves the reliability of power system and prevent blackouts. Due to higher cost of installation, PMU cannot install at every power system buses. In this paper, Gravitational Search Methodology is introduces to optimize the placement of PMUs and provide the higher observability of power system buses. This new Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA) based method has been applied to the IEEE 14-bus, IEEE 30-bus, IEEE 118-bus and Indian Northern Regional Power Grid (NRPG) 246-bus test systems for normal and contingencies conditions both. The effectiveness of proposed methodology reveals optimal number of PMUs with redundant observability by proposed method.