Incorporating Bus-Bar Switching Actions into AC OPF to Avoid Over-Current Status

Abstract

This paper presents a new AC Optimal Power Flow (AC OPF) model for subtransmission networks. This model, which consists of sub-transmission and distribution bus-bar switching actions, can avoid undesirable Over-Current (OC) status and the subsequent actions of OC relays. The proposed AC OPF optimizes the bus-bar switching actions along with optimizing sub-transmission control actions. Also, to consider the impact of the actions of OC relays in the proposed AC OPF, the cost of load shedding caused by these relay actions is included in the objective function and minimized along with the sub-transmission operation cost. The bus-bar switching actions were modeled using binary decision variables. Therefore, the proposed AC OPF model is formulated as a Mixed-Integer Non-Linear Programming (MINLP) optimization problem. The e ectiveness of the proposed model is illustrated for a real-world sub-transmission network of Iran's power system.