Flow-based analysis of storage usage in a low-carbon European electricity scenario

The application of the flow tracing method to power flows in and out of storage units allows to analyse the usage of this technology option in large-scale interconnected electricity systems. We apply this method to a data-driven model of the European electricity network, which uses a techno-economic optimisation to determine generation and storage capacities and dispatch, assuming a 95% reduction of CO2 emission compared to 1990 levels. A flow-based analysis of the power inflow into the different storage technologies confirms the intuition that longer-term hydrogen storage is mainly utilised for wind, whereas short-term battery storage mostly receives inflow from solar power generation. The usage of storage technologies in general shows a local-but-global behaviour: Whereas on average the power outflow from these capacities is predominantly consumed locally inside the same node, when exported it is also transmitted over long distances as a global flexibility option for the entire system.Comment: 15th International Conference on the European Energy Market - EEM 201

Stochastic Model for Power Grid Dynamics

We introduce a stochastic model that describes the quasi-static dynamics of an electric transmission network under perturbations introduced by random load fluctuations, random removing of system components from service, random repair times for the failed components, and random response times to implement optimal system corrections for removing line overloads in a damaged or stressed transmission network. We use a linear approximation to the network flow equations and apply linear programming techniques that optimize the dispatching of generators and loads in order to eliminate the network overloads associated with a damaged system. We also provide a simple model for the operator's response to various contingency events that is not always optimal due to either failure of the state estimation system or due to the incorrect subjective assessment of the severity associated with these events. This further allows us to use a game theoretic framework for casting the optimization of the operator's response into the choice of the optimal strategy which minimizes the operating cost. We use a simple strategy space which is the degree of tolerance to line overloads and which is an automatic control (optimization) parameter that can be adjusted to trade off automatic load shed without propagating cascades versus reduced load shed and an increased risk of propagating cascades. The tolerance parameter is chosen to describes a smooth transition from a risk averse to a risk taken strategy...Comment: framework for a system-level analysis of the power grid from the viewpoint of complex network

New Formulation and Strong MISOCP Relaxations for AC Optimal Transmission Switching Problem

As the modern transmission control and relay technologies evolve, transmission line switching has become an important option in power system operators' toolkits to reduce operational cost and improve system reliability. Most recent research has relied on the DC approximation of the power flow model in the optimal transmission switching problem. However, it is known that DC approximation may lead to inaccurate flow solutions and also overlook stability issues. In this paper, we focus on the optimal transmission switching problem with the full AC power flow model, abbreviated as AC OTS. We propose a new exact formulation for AC OTS and its mixed-integer second-order conic programming (MISOCP) relaxation. We improve this relaxation via several types of strong valid inequalities inspired by the recent development for the closely related AC Optimal Power Flow (AC OPF) problem. We also propose a practical algorithm to obtain high quality feasible solutions for the AC OTS problem. Extensive computational experiments show that the proposed formulation and algorithms efficiently solve IEEE standard and congested instances and lead to significant cost benefits with provably tight bounds