P. Chathuranga Weeraddana, A Distributed Approach for the Optimal Power Flow Problem Based on ADMM and Sequential Convex ApproximationsAbstractThe optimal power flow (OPF) problem, which plays a central role in operating electrical networks is considered. The problem is nonconvex and is in fact NP hard. Therefore, designing efficient algorithms of practical relevance is crucial, though their global optimality is not guaranteed. In this paper, an efficient novel method to address the general OPF problem is investigated. Unlike the semi-definite programming relaxation based approaches, our approach is not restricted to any special classes of electrical networks. The proposed method is based on alternating direction method of multipliers combined with sequential convex approximations. The global OPF problem is decomposed into smaller problem associated to each bus of the network, the solutions of which are coordinated via a light communication protocol. Therefore, the proposed method is highly scalable. The convergence properties of the proposed algorithm are mathematically substantiated. Finally, the proposed algorithm is evaluated on a number of test examples, where the convergence properties of the proposed algorithm are numerically substantiated and the performance is compared with a global optimal method. KeywordsOptimal power flow, distributed optimization, smart grid. DownloadPaper: A Distributed Approach for the Optimal Power Flow Problem Based on ADMM and Sequential Convex Approximations |