Towards AC Feasibility of DCOPF Dispatch

TL;DR

This paper presents a pipeline to convert DCOPF dispatch solutions into AC-feasible solutions, significantly improving accuracy and constraint satisfaction in power system operations.

Contribution

It introduces a unified pipeline combining four DCOPF variants with AC feasibility recovery methods, enhancing practical AC feasibility from DCOPF solutions.

Findings

Reduces mean absolute error and cost differences by 75% and 93%.

Decreases inequality constraint violations by a factor of 3 to 5.

Achieves AC feasibility in over 10,000 scenarios across various test cases.

Abstract

DC Optimal Power Flow (DCOPF) is widely utilized in power system operations due to its simplicity and computational efficiency. However, its lossless, reactive power-agnostic model often yields dispatches that are infeasible under practical operating scenarios such as the nonlinear AC power flow (ACPF) equations. While theoretical analysis demonstrates that DCOPF solutions are inherently AC-infeasible, their widespread industry adoption suggests substantial practical utility. This paper develops a unified DCOPF-ACPF pipeline to recover AC feasible solutions from DCOPF-based dispatches. The pipeline uses four DCOPF variants and applies AC feasibility recovery using both distributed slack allocation and PV/PQ switching. The main objective is to identify the most effective pipeline for restoring AC feasibility. Evaluation across over 10,000 dispatch scenarios on various test cases demonstrates that the structured ACPF model yields solutions that satisfy both the ACPF equations, and all engineering inequality constraints. In a 13,659 bus case, the mean absolute error and cost differences between DCOPF and ACOPF are reduced by 75% and 93%, respectively, compared to conventional single slack bus methods. Under extreme loading conditions, the pipeline reduces inequality constraint violations by a factor of 3 to 5.