Transmission Switching in the RTS-96 Test System

Strategically removing transmission lines from service through “optimal transmission switching” (OTS) has been shown to produce significant system cost savings. Here, we analyze the results of OTS on the RTS-96 network to identify network characteristics that may help identify solution sets and reduce computational complexity. Our initial analysis suggests that the majority of the cost savings from OTS arises from switching a limited number of branches. This finding suggests that the speed of the OTS algorithm, which has been implemented as a mixed-integer program, could be improved by limiting switching operations to a smaller number of pre-screened branches.