Actionable Three-Phase Infeasibility Optimization with Varying Slack Sources

TL;DR

This paper extends a three-phase infeasibility analysis method for distribution grids by adding operational bounds and slack sources, enabling realistic and actionable solutions for large, complex networks under infeasible conditions.

Contribution

Introduces operational bounds and multiple slack sources into TPIA, improving its realism and applicability to large-scale distribution networks.

Findings

Successfully applied to networks with up to 5360 nodes.

Provides actionable solutions in infeasible scenarios.

Demonstrates reactive power compensation using slack susceptance.

Abstract

Modern distribution grids that include numerous distributed energy resources (DERs) and battery electric vehicles (BEVs) will require simulation and optimization methods that can capture behavior under infeasible operating scenarios to assess reliability. A three-phase infeasibility analysis (TPIA) localizes and identifies power deficient areas in distribution feeders via a non-convex optimization that injects and subsequently minimizes slack sources, subject to AC network constraints. In this paper, we extend the TPIA framework by introducing operational bounds to ensure realistic, actionable solutions. We incorporate current, reactive power, and susceptance slack sources to model real-world assets, and discuss their potential use cases. We show that the voltage-bounded TPIA formulations provide actionable solutions for realistic networks of up to 5360 nodes where power flow simulations either fail or return low-voltage solutions. We demonstrate reactive power compensation using the slack susceptance formulation on an infeasible test case.