Efficient Power System

State Estimation

Zafirah Baksh
Expected BS, Department of Electrical Engineering
May 2013
ELEN E4511 Power Systems Analysis
Professor Javad Lavaeiyanesi

1. Introduction
Power systems are supervised and maintained using SCADA. Measurements are taken at
various points in the system and the state of the system is estimated. There are varying errors in
the measurements so an appropriate estimation model is required to account for this. Erroneous
measurements can be detected using a Chi-Squared Distribution test and can then be discarded
from the state estimation. Accurate state estimation enables active monitoring of power systems.
2. Background
Power systems have four main components: transmission, sub-transmission, distribution
and generation systems. This entire system can operate in three states: normal, emergency or
restorative. There are two categorizations to the normal state, the normal secure state and the
normal insecure state. System operators monitor daily to ensure the system stays in the normal
secure state. In the normal secure state, a system can handle the impact of certain occurrences
such as partial equipment failure or generator outages. In the normal insecure state, a system may
not be able to handle these occurrences and can thus move into the emergency state which may
result in the system collapsing. Thus it is critical that the system is always monitored and actions
are taken in a timely manner to ensure that it stays in the normal secure state. Measurements
from all parts of the system are collected and then an estimate of the system state is created. This
state is then assessed to see if actions are required. Measurements include values of various
components of the system such as the bus voltage and line current magnitudes, and switchable
capacitor bank values. The accuracy of the estimate of the system state depends on the accuracy
of these measurements. Furthermore it is not efficient for every single component to be measured
and reported. The state estimator determines the optimal estimate for the system state and also
provides estimates for unmeasured components of the system. It also determines if there are
erroneous measurements as well. [1]
3. Measurement of System Parameters
There are typical error measurements such as erroneous meter readings, and then there
are errors that can be caused by a malicious attack. The state estimator has filters to catch the
typical errors and then there is the Bad Data Detection test to find errors. However a malicious
attack may design the errors they cause to be passed through undetected. If enough errors are
passed through to the state estimator, the state estimation would then be inaccurate. In the worst
case scenario, data could be fabricated and passed through so that the system state always
appears to be normal, when in reality it is not. Then the employees at the control center would
not be able to act preemptively to alleviate any situations on the ground. They might find out too
late, when there are already several points of failure on the grid. [2]
There are several vulnerabilities in the overall monitoring system, SCADA, Supervisory
Control and Data Acquisition. The remote terminal units (RTUs) actually measure the data from
the system components such as transmission line power flows, bus power injections and bus
voltages [2]. Basically measurements would be taken from the two endpoints of the branch, as
follows:

Figure 1: Diagram of branch connecting two buses [1].

This branch of the system is Branch j. The voltage and phase angle measurements are obtained
for Bus k and Bus m, and then stored as j and j, respectively, for various branches in the
system. The equation j is defined as ln(Vk) ln(Vm) and j is defined as k - m. These become
part of branch variable vectors defined as X and X that can be combined to form matrix X.
Now a scaled measurement vector can be obtained, z, which is defined as a nonlinear vector
equation,
. From this we can obtain a linear measurement equation, as follows:

The scaled measurement vector, z, was approximated at some arbitrary value

, so we did
the first order Taylor series approximation to obtain an equation for . This can further be
developed into a model including measurement errors, e,
[1]. This can be further
implemented as a linear regression model as follows,
[3].
4. State Estimation
There are many different models to choose from to perform the regression. The model chosen for
this regression is the Weighted Least Squares (WLS) model. It is preferable to use this model for
this situation instead of other more common models such as the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS)
model. The WLS model is preferable over the basic OLS model because the WLS model
accounts for the case where the error variances of the observations are unequal, so it is not
constant. This condition is called heteroskedasticity. This is different from homoskedasticity,
where the error has the same variance given any value of the regressor [4]. Homoskedasticity is a
necessary condition to perform the OLS regression, therefore because this scenario is
heteroskedastic by nature, the OLS regression would not provide optimal results. The weighted
least squares model is more appropriate because it is a modified version of the OLS model that
accounts for the non-constant error variances [5]. It applies weights to the model depending on
the variances, which can be defined as
[6]. SSR is the sum of squared residuals, which
accounts for positive and negative differences.

Applied to the case at hand, the WLS model can be utilized as follows:

However there is also a disadvantage to this method as well. This method is based on the
assumption that all the weights are known, however they are not known usually so they need to
be estimated, and then these weights are used in the state estimation. However, for the results to
still be accurate, it is assumed that the weights can be estimated precisely relative to each other
[7].
5. Error Detection
The Bad Data Detection (BDD) test can be performed on this to detect erroneous
measurements. It would be performed on the residual, which is [2]:
Once this residual is too large, the BDD test will result in an error found. However a great
concern is that attackers can create errors that bypass such tests, therefore they can introduce a
flood of arbitrary errors to the state estimator [3].
A popular BDD method is to perform a Chi-Squares Test which is based on the ChiSquared Distribution which is the distribution of the sum of m squared independent standard
normal random variables, with N being the degree of freedom [8]. The largest degree of freedom
possible is the difference between the total number of measurements and the system states [1].
The following function,
, is computed and compared to a error detection level of high
probability from the Chi-Squared distribution table.

The estimated measurement is defined by

, the actual measured value is , m is the number
of measurements and
is the variance of error in measurement i as seen previously. If the value
of this function is greater than or equal to the Chi-Squared table value, then it is likely that an
error exists. The percent likeliness of an error in the set would be selected by the value of the
error detection level chosen before. Different percentages can be tested.

6. Further Development
Effective error recognition will enable better monitoring of power systems due to better state
estimation, however time-lags within the SCADA network should be considered in the
estimation models as well. Other model applications can be considered for better state
estimation, such as the time series regression which would provide information needed to create
forecasting models. Conditions in power systems change spontaneously, for example due to a
sudden fallen tree, however sometimes forecasting models used to forecast the state could be
useful. For example, on a hot summer day when power usage is high, previous records exist with
the measurements, so these could be used to forecast the state of the system for the next heat
wave.
References:
[1] A. Abur and A. Expsito, Power System State Estimation. New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc.,
2004.
[2] K. C. Sou, H. Sandberg, and K. H. Johansson, On the Exact Solution to a Smart Grid CyberSecurity Analysis Problem, IEEE Trans. Smart Grid, vol. PP, Issue: 99, 2013.
[3] Y. Liu, M. Reiter, and P. Ning, False Data Injection Attacks against State Estimation in
Electric Power Grids, in the 16th ACM Conference on Computer and Communication
Security, New York, 2009, pp. 21-32.
[4] J. Wooldridge, Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach. Mason, OH: South-Western
Cengage Learning, 2009.
[5] C. Tofallis, Least Squares Percentage Regression, Journal of Modern Applied Statistical
Methods, 2009.
[6] T. Tong, Weighted Least Squares, Department of Applied Mathematics, University of
Colorado, 2010. < http://amath.colorado.edu/courses/7400/2010Spr/lecture23.pdf>.
[7] Weighted Least Squares Regressions, NIST/SEMATECH e-Handbook of Statistical
Methods, 2012. < http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/pmd/section1/pmd143.htm>.
[8] J. Stock and M. Watson, Introduction to Econometrics. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley, 2010.