Instrumentation and Measurement of a Power Distribution System Laboratory for Meter Placement and Network Reconfiguration Studies

The monitoring and automation of power distribution systems has significantly improved with advancements in digital signal processing (DSP) and in computer and Web-based technologies. Power distribution systems could realize benefits from an improved instrumentation and measurement (I&M) configuration for network reconfiguration and meter placement. Drexel University has developed the Reconfigurable Distribution Automation And Control (RDAC) laboratory; it has a power distribution system in which various meter placements and network reconfiguration techniques can be implemented and studied. The authors designed a unique and flexible I&M system consisting of software and hardware instruments to perform network reconfiguration and meter placement studies; it can adapt to power system planning and operating scenarios. This system in the RDAC laboratory is tested and present the results in this paper.