Allocation of Power Meters for Online Load Distribution Estimation in Smart Grids

The electrification of heating and transportation along with the penetration of renewable energy in electricity networks has necessitated the evolution of low voltage distribution grids into smart grids. Contemporary, smart grids are realised by smart meter installations to electricity end users. In the literature, these meters aim at online metering of the grid status. Depending on this status, proactive and/or reactive load management can subsequently be conducted. In reality however, many smart grids perform this metering offline due to excessive data problems. As such, grid operators have reduced observability of the load distribution in their grid throughout the day. This paper investigates the possibility of improving the observability by allocating a minimum number of additional online operated power meters in the distribution grid. This allocation, driven by optimisation, clustering, and forecasting techniques combined with state estimation, proves to be significantly effective. Finally, its potential to future loading estimation is also analysed.