91 research outputs found
Solution of Optimal Power Flow Problems using Moment Relaxations Augmented with Objective Function Penalization
The optimal power flow (OPF) problem minimizes the operating cost of an
electric power system. Applications of convex relaxation techniques to the
non-convex OPF problem have been of recent interest, including work using the
Lasserre hierarchy of "moment" relaxations to globally solve many OPF problems.
By preprocessing the network model to eliminate low-impedance lines, this paper
demonstrates the capability of the moment relaxations to globally solve large
OPF problems that minimize active power losses for portions of several European
power systems. Large problems with more general objective functions have thus
far been computationally intractable for current formulations of the moment
relaxations. To overcome this limitation, this paper proposes the combination
of an objective function penalization with the moment relaxations. This
combination yields feasible points with objective function values that are
close to the global optimum of several large OPF problems. Compared to an
existing penalization method, the combination of penalization and the moment
relaxations eliminates the need to specify one of the penalty parameters and
solves a broader class of problems.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, to appear in IEEE 54th Annual Conference on
Decision and Control (CDC), 15-18 December 201
Recent Advances in Computational Methods for the Power Flow Equations
The power flow equations are at the core of most of the computations for
designing and operating electric power systems. The power flow equations are a
system of multivariate nonlinear equations which relate the power injections
and voltages in a power system. A plethora of methods have been devised to
solve these equations, starting from Newton-based methods to homotopy
continuation and other optimization-based methods. While many of these methods
often efficiently find a high-voltage, stable solution due to its large basin
of attraction, most of the methods struggle to find low-voltage solutions which
play significant role in certain stability-related computations. While we do
not claim to have exhausted the existing literature on all related methods,
this tutorial paper introduces some of the recent advances in methods for
solving power flow equations to the wider power systems community as well as
bringing attention from the computational mathematics and optimization
communities to the power systems problems. After briefly reviewing some of the
traditional computational methods used to solve the power flow equations, we
focus on three emerging methods: the numerical polynomial homotopy continuation
method, Groebner basis techniques, and moment/sum-of-squares relaxations using
semidefinite programming. In passing, we also emphasize the importance of an
upper bound on the number of solutions of the power flow equations and review
the current status of research in this direction.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures. Submitted to the Tutorial Session at IEEE 2016
American Control Conferenc
Conic Optimization Theory: Convexification Techniques and Numerical Algorithms
Optimization is at the core of control theory and appears in several areas of
this field, such as optimal control, distributed control, system
identification, robust control, state estimation, model predictive control and
dynamic programming. The recent advances in various topics of modern
optimization have also been revamping the area of machine learning. Motivated
by the crucial role of optimization theory in the design, analysis, control and
operation of real-world systems, this tutorial paper offers a detailed overview
of some major advances in this area, namely conic optimization and its emerging
applications. First, we discuss the importance of conic optimization in
different areas. Then, we explain seminal results on the design of hierarchies
of convex relaxations for a wide range of nonconvex problems. Finally, we study
different numerical algorithms for large-scale conic optimization problems.Comment: 18 page
Optimal Power Flow with Power Flow Routers
Power flow routing is an emerging control paradigm for the dynamic control of electric power flows. In this paper, we propose a generic model of a power flow router (PFR) and incorporate it into the optimal power flow (OPF) problem. First, a generic PFR architecture is proposed to encapsulate the desired functions of PFRs. Then, the load flow model of PFRs is developed and incorporated into the OPF framework. To pursue global optimality of the non-convex PFR-incorporated OPF (PFR-OPF) problem, we develop a semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxation of PFR-OPF. By introducing the regularization terms that favor a low-rank solution and tuning the penalty coefficients, a rank-1 solution can be obtained and used for recovering an optimal or near-optimal solution of the PFR-OPF and the results are verified in numerical tests. The efficacy of the PFR-OPF framework allows us to investigate the impact of PFR integration. With the system loadability as an example, the numerical results show that remarkable enhancement can be achieved by installing PFRs at certain critical buses of the network.postprin
Construction of power flow feasibility sets
We develop a new approach for construction of convex analytically simple
regions where the AC power flow equations are guaranteed to have a feasible
solutions. Construction of these regions is based on efficient semidefinite
programming techniques accelerated via sparsity exploiting algorithms.
Resulting regions have a simple geometric shape in the space of power
injections (polytope or ellipsoid) and can be efficiently used for assessment
of system security in the presence of uncertainty. Efficiency and tightness of
the approach is validated on a number of test networks
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