Distributed power dispatch via bifurcation control

Distributed generators (DGs) are becoming widely deployed in today´s power grid. These energy sources are typically sustainable and cost-effective but are highly variable based on local environmental conditions. This variability poses many challenges to the practical deployment of DGs in the grid. In this work, a novel distributed power dispatch strategy based on bifurcation control that capitalizes upon the recent cyber enablement of the grid is proposed to effectively manage DGs implemented at the distribution substation level of the power grid. This scheme enables every participating DG to locally compute its dispatch strategy based on simple cyber signals broadcasted by the utility. Results indicate that the DGs are able to rapidly converge to the optimal economical power dispatch with significantly less concentrated computational effort and communication overhead.