Application of heuristic techniques to deal with binary variables in optimal distributed restoration

• Grant number: 21/11310-7
• Support type: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Effective date (Start): April 01, 2022
• Effective date (End): March 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Electrical Engineering - Power Systems
• Principal researcher: Marcos Julio Rider Flores
• Grantee: Juan Camilo Lopez Amezquita
• Supervisor abroad: Johann Hurink
• Home Institution: Faculdade de Engenharia Elétrica e de Computação (FEEC). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Research place: University of Twente (UT), Netherlands
• Associated to the scholarship: 19/01906-0 - Optimal distributed restoration of electrical distribution systems using alternating direction method of multipliers, BP.PD

Abstract

There is a challenging aspect of the optimal distribute restoration problem: binary variables are required to model the behavior of control devices, such as remote-controlled switches. Thus, in its traditional form, ADMM cannot guarantee convergence to optimality because this is only possible when the original optimization problem is strictly convex. During the development of the proposed optimal distributed restoration method, this issue was addressed using a simple rounding technique. In this context, the objective of this research project is to analyze and apply better heuristic techniques to deal with the binary nature of some of the decision variables. The idea is to obtain better and, if possible, faster results than the original rounding method, using heuristic rules that can be applied to large distribution systems. Results will be obtained using realistic Brazilian/Dutch electrical distribution networks, in the presence of multiple distributed energy resources and types of demands. Statistical analyses via Monte Carlo simulations will be also performed in order to show the superiority of the proposed techniques. (AU)