Efficient Distribution System Optimal Power Flow With Discrete Control of Load Tap Changers

Load tap changers (LTCs) are commonly used for voltage control in distribution systems. The mechanical relays on LTCs are controlled in discrete steps; hence, distribution optimal power flow (DOPF) formulations require LTCs to be modeled with integer variables. Integer variables are generally ignore...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on power systems 2019-07, Vol.34 (4), p.2970-2979
Main Authors: Shukla, Sharabh R., Paudyal, Sumit, Almassalkhi, Mads R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptation models
Algorithms
Approximation algorithms
Computational geometry
Computational modeling
Convexity
distribution systems
Electric power distribution
Feeders
Formulations
Linear approximation
load tap changers (LTCs)
Mathematical model
McCormick envelopes
mixed-integer second-order conic programming (MISOCP)
Optimal power flow (OPF)
Optimization
Power flow
Programming
Rounding
Tap changers
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Summary:Load tap changers (LTCs) are commonly used for voltage control in distribution systems. The mechanical relays on LTCs are controlled in discrete steps; hence, distribution optimal power flow (DOPF) formulations require LTCs to be modeled with integer variables. Integer variables are generally ignored or relaxed and rounded off to reduce the computational burden in DOPF models. However, in this paper, we highlight and overcome complex infeasibility issues caused by rounding methods. Moreover, recent advances in convex optimization have improved the computational tractability of the DOPF problem. In this paper, we develop and analyze numerical efficiency of different but exact formulations for incorporating LTCs as integer control assets in a relaxed second-order cone program (SOCP) version of the DOPF model. The resulting formulation becomes a mixed-integer SOCP (MISOCP), which is computationally tractable compared to mixed-integer non-linear program (MINLP). To recover the exact optimal solution in the proposed MISOCP-DOPF model, a McCormick relaxation is employed within a sequential bound-tightening algorithm. We show that solutions obtained from MISOCP-DOPF are always ac feasible. Thus, the MISOCP-DOPF yields optimal and realistic ac solutions, and is validated in large distribution feeders and is compared to MINLP counterpart.
ISSN:0885-8950
1558-0679
DOI:10.1109/TPWRS.2019.2894674