Multi-criteria based staging of Optimal PMU Placement using Fuzzy Weighted Average

In this paper, a multi-criteria based two step method for Optimal PMU Placement (OPP) using Fuzzy Weighted Average (FWA) is proposed. In the first step, a Genetic Algorithm is used to compute the OPP solution based on the requirement of full system observability and maximum measurement redundancy. In the second step, PMU installation criteria are modeled as Fuzzy Sets (FSs) and the FWA is applied to rank the selected PMU installation sites. The criteria of observability, cost, importance, and security are used here for the multi-criteria decision making. It is shown that the proposed method using the FWA can handle a mixture of criteria types (real values, intervals and fuzzy sets) and produce a suitable staging strategy for the PMU installation.