Modeling of Electric Distribution Feeder Using Smart Meter Data

The electric distribution system is becoming more complex with increasing visibility, and a variety of control devices for voltage and power factor control. These advancements provide improved observability of system status and let the operator control the system in more efficient ways. Smart meters are measurement devices that allow the operator to acquire accurate information about the end consumers, and state of the system. Smart meters provide the opportunity to revisit traditional distribution system models in an effort to improve them with more accurate information. Smart meter data enables the creation of time-varying load based distribution system models, enabling testing of various control algorithms. This paper purposes a method for developing a time-series distribution power-flow model using text-based AMI load data which may contain calculation failures. As a test case, a real distribution feeder is modeled in the open source distribution software GridLAB-D, with seasonal loading scenarios. The results are verified by DMS data obtained from the utility. The proposed method does not require GIS data for creating distribution system model. and also provides ways to deal with had data.