Advanced techniques for meter placement and fault location in power systems

The electric power industry is undergoing a profound change. Competition is introduced to electricity generation, where generators have open access to transmission systems. In this deregulated scenario, electric companies are forced to operate their systems more efficiently and improved electrical services are expected to follow. The essential goal of this dissertation is to study and develop new techniques for both, control and protection of power systems. The observability problem, an important issue in the area of control of power systems is studied first. A measurement system design method, that will not only make the systems observable, but also will maintain observability against network branch outages and loss of measurements, is developed. Second, an interactive graphical user interface is developed to facilitate the study of state estimation, network observability analysis, and meter placement algorithms. In addition to these functions, the modularity of the interface program allows several other functions such as power flow analysis, optimal power flow and transient stability analysis to be appended. Finally, in the area of protection of power systems, an advanced technique for fault location based on the use of traveling waves and wavelet transform is developed.