Area-level reduction of wheeling loop flows in regional power networks

This paper introduces a new framework for modeling wheeling loop flows across areas not directly involved in bilateral trades. This framework decomposes each wheeling loop flow into a linear combination of contributions by the individual bilateral trades. It has zooming-in and zooming-out capabilities for modeling the level of details of interest. The zoomed-in network representations neglect interconnections while treating areas fully disconnected from the rest of the network. This feature allows to have distributed algorithms with completely decentralized decision making. In this framework, we formulate distributed algorithms for wheeling loop flow reduction which do not require individual areas to reveal their internal generation and load. Loop flow minimization is achieved by rescheduling generation within areas directly involved in bilateral trades. Since this rescheduling leads to a more expensive economic dispatch, we define a new Optimal Power Flow (OPF) problem that accounts for wheeling charges and generation cost. Simulation results are illustrated on the IEEE 14-bus system and the RTS 96-bus system.