Deriving optimal operational rules for mitigating inter-area oscillations

This paper introduces a new method for mitigating inter-area oscillations of a large scale interconnected power system by means of generation re-dispatch. The optimal mitigation procedures are derived by searching for the shortest distance from current operating condition to a targeted operating condition with the desired damping ratio of the oscillation mode. A sensitivity-based method is used to select the most effective generators for generation re-dispatch and decision tree is trained to approximate the security boundary in a space characterized by the selected generators. The optimal operational rules can be found by solving an optimization problem where the boundary constraints are provided by the decision tree rules. This method is tested on a Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) 179-bus simplified model and simulation results have demonstrated the validity of the decision-tree-based method and shown promising application in real time operation.