Under frequency load shedding (UFLS) is an effective way to prevent system blackout after a serious disturbance occurs in a power system. A novel centralized adaptive under frequency load shedding (AUFLS) scheme using the synchronous phase measurement unit (PMU) is proposed in this paper. Two main stages are consisted of in the developed technique. In the first stage, the active power deficit is estimated by using the simplest expression of the generator swing equation and static load model since the frequency, voltages and their rate of change can be obtained by means of measurements in real-time from various devices such as phase measurement units. In the second stage, the UFLS schemes are adapted to the estimated magnitude based on the presented model. The effectiveness of the proposed AUFLS scheme is investigated simulating different disturbance in IEEE 10-generator 39-bus New England test system.