Estimation of Transmission Lines Parameters Using
Particle Swarm Optimization
Fermín Rafael Cabezas Soldevilla
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering - PhD Program in Energetics
National University of Engineering
Lima, Peru
fcabezass@uni.edu.pe
Abstract— The identification of the values with good accuracy
of physical parameters of transmission systems is very important
because using very different values from the real ones seriously
distorts the evaluation of the planning, design, operation,
maintenance and commercialization of the transmission systems.
The present work describes the identification of physical
parameters of a real transmission system using a mathematical
model with variable values of the physical parameters.
The identification is done by comparing the real operation of the
system with the simulated operation of the model, varying
iteratively the physical parameters values of the mathematical
model. To this purpose two different techniques were applied, a
classical and a modern meta-heuristic technique to 47 high
voltage transmission lines of the Peruvian electrical system.
The real operation is obtained from the database of the
measurements of the operating variables of the transmission
system. The correct values of the physical parameters will be
those that correspond to the simulated operation identified.
This paper is organized as follows: Section II describes the
philosophy of the parameter estimation problem, here is included
the symbology, the model of the transmission system, the
formulation of the problem and its solution. In section III, the
results of the identified parameters are presented and discussed.
Finally, in section IV the conclusions are presented.
Keywords— state estimation; parameter estimation; cross-
sectional losses; particle swarm optimization.
I. INTRODUCTION
The planning, design, operation, maintenance and
commercialization of the transmission systems are based on the
knowledge with good precision of their operating variables:
active powers, reactive powers and phasor voltages. These
variables are calculated and in general are functions of the
physical parameters of the transmission system: resistors,
inductive reactances, capacitive admittances and leakage
conductances. However, the true values of the physical
parameters of many lines are unknown because they have
varied significantly due to contamination and adverse working
conditions, because their original nominal values were not
adequately determined by the manufacturer, by modifying the
circuits without updating the parameters, etc. These errors can
be very large, in the order of 25 and 30%, Kusic [1].
978-1-5386-5844-4/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE
Franklin Alfredo Cabezas Huerta
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering - PhD Program in Energetics
National University of Engineering
Lima, Peru
fcabezash@uni.pe
In Peru is very important to know the correct values of the
physical parameters because it has been detected that the
current leakage conductances of the coastal lines are very high
and cause transverse losses of up to 60 kW/km while in the
majority of countries in the world they do not exceed 3 kW/km.
In the second semester of 2016, the billing of the Peruvian
electric sector reached 4,407 million dollars (Supervisory
Agency of Investment in Energy and Mining) so any
improvement in the estimation of interchanges limits and
capacity restrictions will improve the economic dispatch,
producing important savings for the country's economy.
In this article two methods are presented to obtain with
good precision the physical parameters of the transmission
systems: Optimization by Newton Raphson [2] and Particle
Swarm Optimization (PSO) [7], [8].
II. PROBLEM FORMULATION
A. Modeling variables
The main variables involved in the operation of the
transmission lines are the following:
V1, V2 Line voltages in bars 1 and 2, in kV
d1, d2 Phase angles of voltages with respect to a reference,
in radians
d = d1 - d2 Relative phase shift of voltages, in radians
P1, P2 Active line powers in bars 1 and 2, in MW
Q1, Q2 Reactive power of line in bars 1 and 2, in MVAR
B. Physical parameters of the lines
The lines, due to the physical characteristics of the
conductor used and their own physical structure, present
resistive, inductive, capacitive and current leakage effects to the
external environment of the line. These effects are represented
by the following physical parameters:
R Resistance (ohms)
YR Admittance of leakage or perditance (siemens)
(effect of leakage of current to the exterior)
XL Inductive reactance (ohms)
YC Capacitive Admittance (mhos)
 The value of R changes slightly with temperature, w Vector deviation of physical parameters respect to the
degradation of the conductivity due to aging, corrosion, vector of initial physical parameters
contamination and use of the conductor. M Matrix covariance of the vector w or mistrust matrix
The values of XL and YC depend mainly on the geometry of the initial parameters
of the line structure.
The value of YR depends on the operating voltage and the In each measurement interval k, the relation between the
external environment to the line, therefore it is varying all the measured values z(k) of the operation variables and its
time. calculated values f (x (k), p, k) is represented by:

P 1 + jQ 1 R + jX L P 2 + jQ 2 ( ) = ( ) − ( ( ), , ) (5)
I1 I2

1 2 Taking this into account, a natural function of the quadratic

V 1 = |V 1 | ∠ 0 V 2 = |V 2 | ∠ δ
error of state and parameters estimation for the whole system,
weighting the quality of the meters is [3], [5], [6]:

YR + j YC Y R + jY C ( ( ), = 1… ; ) =

= ( ) − ( ( ), ) ( ) − ( ( ), )

+( − ) ( − ) (6)
Fig. 1. Phase PI Model of Transmission Lines.
The estimation process of state estimation and parameter
The load flow equations for the PI model of a transmission identification consists of finding the values x(k), k = 1 ... N of
line are the following [2], [5], [6]. the state vectors and the vector p of physical parameters that
minimize J. The vector p will be constant for all the vectors
2
2 V1 R V1 V2 Rcosδ V1 V2 X L senδ x(k).
P1 = V1 YR + 2 2
− 2 2
− (1)
R +X L R +X L R2 + X L2 D. Identification of parameters using Optimization by Newton
Rapshon
2 This optimization method is very efficient, tested and used
2 V1 V2 R senδ V1 XL V1 V2 XL cosδ by the state estimation processes of most control centers in the
Q1 = − V1 YC + 2 2
+ 2 2
− (2)
R +X L R +X L R2 + XL2 world, Kusic [1], Wood [2]. Its use in the estimation of
parameters was initially proposed by Debs [3] and Schweppe
2 [4]. The shape and detail is described in Fig. 2 [6].
2 V2 R V1 V2 Rcosδ V1 V2 X Lsenδ
P2 = V2 YR + 2 2
− 2 2
+ (3)
R +X L R +X L R2 + X L2

2
2 V2 XL V1 V2 R senδ V1 V2 XL cosδ
Q2 = − V2 YC + 2 2
− − (4)
R +X L R2 + XL2 R2 + XL2
C. Analitical development of the estimation process
The following symbols will be used:

k Time intervals in which measurements are taken

N Total number of intervals of the time series
x (k) State vector, x = [V1 V 2 δ ]T
Vector of physical parameters, p = [R YR X L YC ]
T
p
p0 Vector of initial physical parameters
f (x (k), p, k) Vector of calculated operation variables:
active powers, reactive powers and voltages Fig. 2. Identification of parameters using Newton Raphson.
z (k) Vector of measurement operation variables In this process, the solution of the estimation of the
v (k) Deviation vector of the measurement vector parameters is implemented. For a vector of parameters p(L) of
with respect to the operation vector the iteration L, it is calculated the state estimation x[k,p(L)] of
R (k) Matrix covariance of the vector v (k) or quality each measurement vector z(k), obtaining the estimation error
matrix of the meters J[k, P (L)].
 The sum of the estimation errors of the measurement
vectors in all the intervals will be the estimation error J(L) of
the parameter P(L). If J(L) does not converge with respect to
its previous value, the optimum correction dP using Newton
Raphson of the parameter P(L) is calculated and the correction
P(L+1) = P(L) + dP is made for the next iteration.
The parameter estimation ends when J(L) converges, obtaining
the JMINIMAL error of parameter estimation and the PESTIMATED
vector of the values of the estimated parameters.
= ( ) ( ) +
( ) ( ) − ( ( ), ) + ( − ) (7)
E. Identification of Parameters using Particle Swarm
Optimization (PSO)
A geometrically multivariable function is a surface in the
space formed by all the values that the function takes (points
on the surface) for all the values that the variables take.
In an optimization problem, there is a multivariable function
(objective function) and the problem is to find the values of
the variables of this function that correspond to the maximum
or minimum value (optimal point of the surface) of the
function.
It is known that many groups of living beings such as
flocks of birds, schools of fish, etc. they form swarms (called
in this case particles swarm) and move dynamically to look for
some objective of fundamental life, such as food or security
among others and these swarms almost always achieve their
objective in optimal conditions. This happens because at the
same time all the particles are searching for the target and are
mysteriously communicating with each other. Each one knows
at every moment how good their own search is and what is the
particle of the whole swarm that is doing this work better.
With this information, in the next moment, all the particles
redirect their exploration towards the particle of better search
and this process is repetitive.
According to this, if any particle is performing the best
search and at each moment improves until finding the target,
all particles of the swarm will follow and converge on the
target.
The PSO technique is a tool that solves optimization
problems and is based on the emulation of the dynamics of
these swarms [7], [8]. In general, it is considered that a group
of particles move in a limited multivariable space, in iterative
search of the optimal solution, the position of each of them is a
potential solution.
In each iteration new positions are generated for the
particles, which are obtained by means of a speed calculated
according to the best current position of each particle and the
best global position of the swarm. The quality of the position
of each particle is obtained by evaluating the objective
function each time it takes a new position. This process is
repetitive and ultimately leads to an optimal solution where all
the particles converge.
The terminology used is the following:
xi = [xi1, xi2, ... xid …, xim] represents the position of the ith
particle, which has m components or coordinates.
The best previous position of the ith particle is:
= , ,…, ,…,
The best global position of the swarm (gbest) corresponds
to the swarm particle with the best search behavior.
Its component d is gbestd.
= ,…, ,…, is the velocity of the ith particle
The speed and position of each particle in the next
iteration are calculated by the expressions:
= ∗ + ∗ ∗ −
+ ∗ ∗ − (8)
= + (9)
i = 1,2, ..., np; d = 1,2, ..., m
where:
np swarm particle number
m number of components or coordinates of the position
of any particle
k indicator of iterations
w coefficient of inertia
, acceleration factors
U uniform random number in the range [0,1]
, position and velocity in component d, of ith particle in
iteration k
According to equation 6, the general problem of parameter
identification and state estimation is to find the vectors x(k)
and p that correspond to the minimum value of the
performance function J of the estimation process.
 To solve this problem using PSO, each particle of the
swarm will be a candidate vector of these two vectors together.
If we select 100 particles, the swarm will have a structure
of 100 columns vectors of 7 components (3 state variables and
4 physical parameters).
The main steps for the identification of the parameters
using PSO are the following:
1. The PSO factors are included.
2. The data of the selected transmission lines are inputted:
Initial values and maximum and minimum values of the state
variables and the physical parameters of the lines.
3. Make k = 0 (initial iteration).
4. The initial position and velocity of the particle population
are generated randomly.
5. The vector of operation variables of the line is calculated
according to the equations of the line model.
y ( x , p ) = [PI VR ]
T
QI VI PR QR
6. The objective function of the general estimation process
including the restrictions of maximum and minimum values of
the state variables and the physical parameters (aptitude
function) is calculated.
7. The best position of each particle is determined (pbest) and
the best global position of the whole swarm (gbest).
8. The speeds vk+1 and positions xk+1 of each particle are
updated.
9. It is verified if the maximum number of iterations kmax has
been exceeded. If not, k turns to k = k + 1, the process returns
to step 5 and the process continues. If it has been exceeded,
then the optimal values of the physical parameters are given by
the coordinates of the particle with the gbest and the value of
the minimum error of estimation is given by the corresponding
aptitude function.
III. RESULTS
Both methods were applied to 47 high voltage transmission
lines of the Peruvian electric system. The results obtained were
similar in most lines, however using PSO was obtained the
lowest estimation error. These results are shown in Table II,
confirming that the leakage conductances of many of the
coastal lines are very high, ranging from 0.1 to 1.96 (µS/km)
while in the Sierra they are very small (technically despicable).
This is due to the fact that in the Peruvian Litoral there is a
high humidity throughout the year that favors the corrosion
and contamination of the lines.
In 1997 [9] The Institute for National Measurement Standards
(INMS) from Canada made experimental measurements in
some lines to determine their transverse losses. Later, in 2002,
severe maintenance (brushing of the lines) was made and the
transversal losses decreased considerably. The results of the
average optimal estimation of the transversal losses obtained
of simulations from 2002 to 2015 are consistent with the
experimental measurements, which confirms the validity of
the method proposed in this work. These results are shown in
the Table I.
TABLE I. ESTIMATED VALUES OF TRANSVERSALS
LOSSES WITH RESPECT TO THE CORRESPONDING
MEASURED VALUES [6]
IV. CONCLUSIONS
The estimation error function that must be minimized is a
non-linear, non-convex function that has an absolute optimum
but is very difficult to find. Classical methods start from a point
and from there they look for the optimum, often find a relative
optimum and presume that it is the optimal solution. The PSO
has the advantage that it starts from many points (swarm of
potential solutions) and makes routes where chance is part of
the criterion. In this way they sweep almost the entire search
horizon and if they find relative optimum, they do not stop and
continue searching for a better one. In general, the values found
with the PSO are better than those found with classical
methods.
REFERENCES
[1] G. Kusic, “Computer Aided Power Systems Analysis” Prentice Hall
1986.
[2] A. Wood, "Power Generation, Operation and Control", 2013.
[3] A. Debs, “Estimation of Steady State Power System Model Parameters”
Georgia Institute of Technology, 1974.
[4] F. Schweppe, “Static State Estimation in Electric Power Systems”, MIT
Cambridge, 1974.
[5] J.J. Grainger, W.D. Stevenson Jr., “Analysis of Power Systems”, Mc
Graw Hill 1995.
[6] F. Cabezas, “Determination and Evaluation of Power and Energy Losses
in the National Electric Transmission System using State Estimation and
Physical Parameters Techniques”, Master's Thesis, Lima, Peru, 2018.
[7] J. Kennedy, E. Russell, "Particle Swarm Optimization", Proceedings of
IEEE International Conference on Neural Networks, pp. 1942-1948,
1995.
[8] B. Akbal, "PSO and CSA to Estimate of Parameter in Power Line" IEEE
2013.
[9] R. Arseneau, A. Bulinski and E. So, “Power Loss, Leakage Current and
Corona Measurements on High Voltage Transmission Lines”, National
Research Council Canada, Institute for National Measurement Standars,
International Conference on Electrical Losses in the Coastal
Transmission System of ETECEN in 220 kV, July 1997.
 PHYSICAL PARAMETERS OF THE TRANSMISSION SYSTEM IDENTIFIED WITH THE ESTIMATION THEORY

In the following chart, the updated characteristics of the physical structure of the lines are shown: The first box shows the nominal
physical parameters, provided by the COES SINAC (Operations Committee of the National Interconnected System).
Many of these values are not correct since they have been modified by the rough use of the lines and by the contamination.
Other values as the YR (line's leakage conductance) in microsiemens per kilometer (µS/km), really were not known for difficulty
in their measurement. In the second box, the actual optimal estimated values of the physical parameters are shown.
The process of identification of parameters has made it possible to identify these values. VPTr represents the total transversal
losses of the line and VPTrkm the transversal losses of the line per kilometer.

TABLE II. PHYSICAL PARAMETERS OF THE TRANSMISSION SYSTEM [6].