A network expansion method considering power flow controlling devices applicable to real-scale grid structures

摘要

Recent developments in the energy sector lead to an increasing need for network expansion in Europe. Power Flow Controlling Devices (PFCD) such as High Voltage Direct Current systems, Phase Shifting Transformers and Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS) have become a promising options for network expansion due to their inherent capability of increasing the power flow controllability. This paper presents a transmission expansion planning (TEP) method considering the integration of PFCD and the conventional expansion of AC-lines as possible expansion measures. A particle swarm optimization (PSO) is applied to solve the TEP problem. To improve the solution quality several enhancements of the PSO algorithm are developed. In order to allow the application to real-scale network structures under the consideration of a large number of grid utilization cases (GUC), two different parallel implementations of the PSO algorithm called synchronous parallel PSO and asynchronous parallel PSO are implemented and compared. The model is applied to a network model with 120 busses and time series for 8760 GUC. The results show significant calculation time reduction achieved by the parallel implementation. The analysis of the different technologies for network expansion showed a reduction of the investment cost by 8.3% due to the consideration of PST and FACTS.