A Low Cost PMU to Monitor Distribution Grids

Phasor Measurement Units have become more and more interesting for monitoring applications in distribution grids. For a large exploitation in medium and low voltage networks, however, a limited cost is required. Such specification, however, should not impact excessively the accuracy requirements, as it is expected that automatic control functionalities will run based on state estimation algorithms, which can be fed by PMU information. In this paper the design of a low cost PMU for distribution grids is proposed, and tested versus the IEEE c37.118.1-2011 standard for accuracy. The development of the low cost PMU is part of the Modular Intelligent Node (MIND) project, where distribution grid components and functionalities are implemented as modular interconnected nodes that run on general purpose hardware.