Configuration of WAMS and Pilot Bus Selection for Secondary Voltage Control in the Egyptian Grid

A key feature in smart grids is the ability to provide real time monitoring and control. This paper presents techniques for implementing a Wide Area Measurement System (WAMS) and selecting pilot buses in the Egyptian grid to enable implementing secondary voltage control. The design technique of WAMS includes optimal placement of Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) and Phasor Data Concentrators (PDCs), as well as their associated Communication Infrastructure (CI), to achieve minimum cost. To generalize the technique, different power grid conditions are taken into consideration such as N-1 contingency analysis (outage of a PMU or transmission line(s) or transformer(s)). Nomination of certain load buses (pilot buses) is the main step to implement optimal secondary voltage control. The method used to select pilot buses considers system-wide information and different operating conditions regarding different load levels and network topologies. The power system analyses were performed using DIgSILENT software while the optimization problems were solved in MATLAB software.