Modelling of multi-terminal HVDC systems in optimal power flow formulation

The multi-terminal HVDC systems and their embedded DC networks are considered as smart grids technology which improve economic efficiency of the power system. This technology allows better voltage profile in the power system by better allocation of the generation sources. Also, it can help in improving the economic efficiency of the system by substituting the high-cost generation with low-cost generation. In order to assess the technical benefit of this smart grids technology, this paper presents an optimal power flow formulation for AC grids with embedded DC networks built from multi-terminal HVDC systems. The objective function of this AC-DC OPF formulation is the total active dispatch costs. The constraints consist of (a) AC grid constraints, (b) constraints from multi-terminal HVDC systems, and (c) DC grid constraints. The formulated AC-DC OPF is a mixed-integer nonlinear optimisation problem. The formulation is coded in GAMS platform and tested on IEEE 30 Bus system.