Locating phasor measurements and detecting cutset angles in power systems

The phase angle can measure the static stress in a power grid, and large phase-angle difference can indicate the instability of a grid. Ubiquitous placement of phasor measure units in a wide area can be costly and data intensive. Following the definition of the cutset proposed by Dobson et al. (2010), we develop optimization models to identify a cutset across which there is the largest angle difference. Locating phasor measurement units along the cutset can measure the instability between the partitioned areas. Results show that our method can increase awareness of the stress in a power system.