Distributed optimal power flow with discrete control variables of large distributed power systems

In this paper, we propose a distributed algorithm to solve the yet explored distributed optimal power flow problem with discrete control variables of large distributed power systems. The proposed algorithm consists of two distinguished features: 1) a distributed algorithm for solving continuous distributed optimal power flow to serve as a core technique in the framework of ordinal optimization (OO) strategy, and 2) implementing the OO strategy in a distributed power system to select a good enough discrete control variable solution. We have tested the proposed algorithm for several cases on the IEEE 118-bus and Tai Power 244-bus systems using a 4-PC network. The test results demonstrate the validity, robustness, and excellent computational efficiency of the proposed distributed algorithm in getting a good enough feasible solution.