Algorithm

Voltage

Engineering

Network topology

Reliability engineering

Control reconfiguration

Linear programming

Embedded system

Scheduling (production processes)

Dispatchable generation

Computer science

Mathematical optimization

Distributed generation

Distributed computing

Integer programming

Computer network

Thermodynamics

Physics

Renewable energy

Mathematics

Operations management

Microgrid

Resilience (materials science)

Topology (electrical circuits)

Islanding

Electrical engineering

International Journal of Electrical Power & Energy Systems

Electric utility companies work to restore as much load as possible after power outages caused by extreme weather events. In this paper, an outage management strategy is proposed to enhance distribution system resilience through network reconfiguration and distributed energy resources (DERs) scheduling. After a line fault, the proposed algorithm can identify radial network topology based on the rank of the incidence matrix. The reconfiguration is implemented by switching tie lines and sectionalizing lines. With the new network topology, an optimal DER scheduling problem is solved to minimize the accumulative cost for dispatchable DER operation and load reduction. Finally, the optimal topology that minimizes the accumulative cost is selected from all radial topologies. The computational workload is relatively low because only linear programming needs to be solved. Using the case studies of the IEEE 69-bus and IEEE 123-bus systems, we consider the worst-case scenarios in which faults occur in the upstream feeder. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed strategy allows for a relatively high percentage of the load to remain in service after line faults. Furthermore, compared with microgrid-formation approaches, the proposed strategy has advantages when applied to the distribution systems with several normally-open tie lines and low DER penetration.

Network reconfiguration and distributed energy resource scheduling for improved distribution system resilience