A robust estimation method for topology error identification

A pre-processing method that identifies both multiple topology errors and bad measurements is described. The method determines the branch statuses by testing the real and reactive power flow estimates of all the branches of the network, irrespective of their assumed statuses. The power flows are the state variables of two decoupled real and reactive power models that stem from both a detailed substation representation and a super-node modeling. They are estimated by means of the iteratively reweighted least-squares algorithm that implements the Huber M-estimator. The procedure is not prone to divergence problems, which is of great value in a real-time environment. The performance of the method is demonstrated on the IEEE-118 bus system.