Power system resilience against climatic faults: An optimized self-healing approach using conservative voltage reduction

The resilience of power systems is critical in mitigating faults caused by the impending effects of climate change. Typical operational methods, such as network reconfiguration, may be insufficient to mitigate faults in the event of a contingency. On the other hand, reducing system demand may help increase the number of restored loads. As a result, this paper proposes a novel self-healing optimization approach based on a power grid concept known as conservative voltage reduction (CVR), which results in system demand reduction. The proposed optimization model is formulated as a mixed integer non-linear (MINLP) problem to fulfill an objective of minimizing unserved loads within the system. Voltage, thermal capacity, system radiality, and several more constraints have been taken into consideration while formulating the proposed model to handle both grid-connected and isolated modes of operation. Both dispatchable and non-dispatchable distributed generators (DGs) are taken into consideration. Dispatchable DGs are assumed to be capable of switching back and forth between constant power (PQ) and droop controls for the purpose of grid following and grid forming in grid-connected and isolated modes of operation, respectively. The proposed optimization approach is coded and solved using the General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS) software. The IEEE 69-bus power distribution test system is utilized to test the validity and superiority of the proposed model. The results show that the proposed model effectively increases the system resilience by reducing the unserved power/energy within the system following a contingency.