Optimized Power Flow Control to Minimize Congestion in a Modern Power System

Max Bodenstein (), Ingo Liere-Netheler, Frank Schuldt, Karsten von Maydell, Alexander K. Hartmann and Carsten Agert
Additional contact information
Max Bodenstein: PSI Software AG, 63741 Aschaffenburg, Germany
Ingo Liere-Netheler: Westnetz GmbH, 44139 Dortmund, Germany
Frank Schuldt: DLR Institute of Networked Energy Systems, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany
Karsten von Maydell: DLR Institute of Networked Energy Systems, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany
Alexander K. Hartmann: Department of Physics, University of Oldenburg, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany
Carsten Agert: DLR Institute of Networked Energy Systems, 26129 Oldenburg, Germany

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 12, 1-19

Abstract: The growing integration of renewable energy sources (RES) into the power system causes congestion to occur more frequently. In order to reduce congestion in the short term and to make the utilization of the power system more efficient in the long term, power flow control (PFC) in the transmission system has been proposed. However, exemplary studies show that congestion will increase also in the distribution system if the transmission system is expanded. For this reason, the potential of PFC to reduce congestion in a model of a real 110 kV distribution system is investigated. Several Unified Power Flow Controller (UPFC) devices are optimized in terms of their number and placement in the power system, their size, control parameters, and costs, by using a Parallel Tempering approach as well as a greedy algorithm. Two optimization variants are considered, one reducing the number of degrees of freedom by integrating system knowledge while the other does not. It is found that near a critical grid state and disregarding costs, PFC can reduce congestion significantly (99.13%). When costs of the UPFCs are taken into account, PFC can reduce congestion by 73.2%. A basic economic analysis of the costs reveals that the usage of UPFCs is profitable. Furthermore, it is found that the reduction in the solution space of the optimization problem leads to better results faster and that, contrary to expectations, the optimization problem is simple to solve. The developed methods allow not only for the determination of the optimal use of UPFCs to minimize congestion, but also to estimate their profitability.

Keywords: power flow control; distribution system; congestion management; renewable energy integration; curtailment; UPFC; FACTS; optimization; load flow analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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