State Estimator for Power Distribution Systems

State estimation in power distribution systems is fundamentally more challenging than in transmission networks. Distribution systems are highly unbalanced, radial or weakly meshed, and often lack sufficient real-time measurements. They are also subject to frequent topology changes caused by switching operations, load variability, distributed energy resources (DERs), and data quality issues from diverse sensing devices. Traditional state estimation algorithms struggle under these conditions due to poor observability, sensitivity to bad data, leverage points, and unreliable convergence.

SE+ provides a robust and practical solution for distribution system state estimation. Instead of relying on residual magnitudes or dense measurement coverage, SE+ identifies the most consistent subset of available measurements and rejects those that are incompatible with the system model. This consistency-based approach allows SE+ to operate reliably even with sparse, noisy, or mixed measurement sources, while naturally handling topology errors, parameter uncertainties, and bad data. As a result, SE+ delivers stable, unbiased, and explainable state estimates for distribution systems, making it well suited for applications such as distribution monitoring, DER integration, outage analysis, and advanced distribution management—either as a standalone estimator or as an offline or parallel validation tool.