A state estimation algorithm for the monitoring of distribution grids in absence of pseudo-measurements

Real-time monitoring and situational awareness are often a prerequisite to enable the intelligent management of distribution grids and to step into the smart grid paradigm. Despite the research efforts to design state estimation tools tailored to the distribution system, achieving real-time monitoring at distribution level is still a major challenge. One of the main problems is the scarce number of measurement devices available in the field. Pseudo-measurements, namely forecasts of power consumption or generation, are usually introduced to deal with this issue. Nonetheless, defining meaningful pseudo-measurements is not a trivial task and it can represent a barrier, from a practical perspective, for the deployment of the monitoring system. This paper presents a new formulation of the distribution system state estimation problem that avoids defining pseudo measurements and allows running state estimation using only few real-time measurements in combination with the nominal data of the connected loads or generators. Performed tests prove that the proposed algorithm can be an effective solution to easily deploy state estimation in poorly instrumented grids, avoiding the complexities and potential issues associated to the use of pseudo-measurements.