Generation expansion planning with decomposition-coordination: An improved iterative method

Generation expansion planning (GEP) is becoming more complicated with the integration of renewable energy sources (RES). Using the decomposition-coordination technique, the nonlinear optimization problem of GEP is decomposed into sub-problems, whose results are coordinated to obtain the optimal GEP scheme by iteration. However, using the conventional iterative method to solve GEP is becoming more difficult with the integration of RES. In this paper, the iterative method is improved to solve GEP when RES are incorporated. By adaptively inheriting the iterated variables and searching for the optimal iterative direction, this method obtains more satisfactory GEP scheme with less computation time, and avoids entrapment in local optima. The effectiveness of the improved iterative method is proved in comparison with the conventional iterative method in case studies.