Placement of power quality monitors using enhanced genetic algorithm and wavelet transform

Power quality (PQ) problems include harmonics, voltage flicker, three-phase imbalance, voltage swell/sag, interruption, switching transient and so on. Identification of accurate location and occurrence time of PQ problem is important for understanding the underlying cause and to prevent future occurrence. This study presents a new method for placement of power quality measurement facilities to identify PQ problems. The power harmonics and capacitor switching transients are used as disturbance sources for illustration. The proposed method first utilises harmonic voltages and wavelet coefficients as PQ features. An enhanced genetic algorithm is proposed for solving the modified K-means clustering to place PQ measurement monitors. Simulation results for an 18-bus system show that the proposed approach is effective in comparison with the existing approaches.