Measurement-Based Estimation of the Power Flow Jacobian Matrix

In this paper, we propose a measurement-based method to compute the power flow Jacobian matrix, from which we can infer pertinent information about the system topology in near real-time. A salient feature of our approach is that it readily adapts to changes in system operating point and topology; this is desirable as it provides power system operators with a way to update, as the system evolves, the models used in many reliability analysis tools. The method uses high-speed synchronized voltage and current phasor data collected from phasor measurement units to estimate entries of the Jacobian matrix through linear total least-squares (TLS) estimation. In addition to centralized TLS-based algorithms, we provide distributed alternatives aimed at reducing computational burden. Through numerical case studies, we illustrate the effectiveness of our proposed Jacobian-matrix estimation approach as compared with the conventional model-based one.