Optimal Distribution System Restoration with Microgrids and Distributed Generators

Abstract

Increasing emphasis on reliability and resiliency call for advanced distribution system restoration (DSR). The integration of grid sensors, remote controls, and distributed generators (DG) brings about exciting opportunities in DSR. In this context, this work considers the task of single-step restoration of a single-phase power distribution system. Different from existing works, the devised restoration scheme achieves optimal formation of islands without heuristically pre-identifying reference buses. It further facilitates multiple DGs running within the same island, and establishes a coordination hierarchy in terms of their PV/PQ operation modes. Generators without black-start capability are guaranteed to remain connected to a black-start DG or a substation. The proposed scheme models remotelycontrolled voltage regulators exactly, and integrates them in the restoration process. Numerical tests on a modified IEEE 37bus feeder demonstrate that the proposed mixed-integer linear program (MILP) takes less than four seconds to handle random outages of 1-5 lines. The scalability of this novel MILP formulation can be attributed to the unique use of cycles and paths on the grid infrastructure graph; the McCormick linearization technique; and an approximate power flow model.

Chance-Constrained Optimal Distribution Network Partitioning to Enhance Power Grid Resilience

“…Network radiality is essential for distribution system operations. Some prior approaches proposed for enforcing radiality are cycle elimination [19] and virtual commodity flow [9], [33]. The ODNP task needs to identify G = (V, E ), a spanning subgraph of G, such that every connected component, or simply component, of G is a tree, i.e.…”

“…The IEEE 1547.4-2011 standard mandates that an island should have at least one generator that provides voltage and frequency support during a system disturbance, or has black-start capabilities [2]. An exhaustive path search based method for checking connectivity to black-start generators has been proposed in [19]. Another multiple commodity flow based approach outlined in [20] separately checks nodes for their connectivity to blackstart nodes.…”

Creating Realistic Power Distribution Networks using Interdependent Road Infrastructure

“…One of the important aspects to generate optimal realistic synthetic distribution networks is to maintain the radial configuration [9] and ensure that the proposed optimization framework does not produce isolated loops in the network. It has been revisited by multiple works on distribution network reconfiguration (DNR) [14][15][16] and distribution system planning (DSP) [8,11,20]. However, most of these works pertain to selecting edges in medium voltage networks with fixed number of known root nodes (substations or distributed energy resources).…”

On the Value of Community Association for Microgrid Development: Learnings from Multiple Deterministic and Stochastic Planning Designs

“…Average annual duration of interruptions for Latin American countries [11]. Additionally, microgrids are capable of reacting, resisting and recovering quickly in the event of low-probability and high-impact events (such as hurricanes, earthquakes and floods), facilitating the rapid recovery of the power grid [12].…”