Optimal Reconfiguration of DC Networks

• Published in: IEEE transactions on power systems Vol. 35; no. 6; pp. 4272 - 4284
• Main Authors: Altun, Tuncay, Madani, Ramtin, Yadav, Ajay Pratap, Nasir, Adnan, Davoudi, Ali
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.11.2020; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Convexity; DC network; Direct current; economic dispatch; Flow equations; Load flow; Load shedding; Mixed integer; network reconfiguration; Network topology; Nonlinear programming; optimal power flow; Optimization; Power flow; Power generation dispatch; Power system economics; Reconfiguration
• ISSN: 0885-8950; 1558-0679
• DOI: 10.1109/TPWRS.2020.2994962

In this paper, we consider the problem of optimizing voltage set points and switching status of components in direct current power networks subject to physical and security constraints. The problem is cast as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming with two sources of computational complexity: i) Non-convex power flow equations, and ii) The presence of binary variables accounting for the on/off status of network components. A strengthened second-order cone programming (SOCP) relaxation is developed to tackle the non-convexity of power flow equations, and a branch-and-bound search is employed for determining optimal network configurations. The efficacy of the proposed method in optimizing the operation while mitigating contingencies is experimentally validated in a real-time hardware-in-the-loop environment using IEEE benchmark data.