Asynchronous distributed approach for DC Optimal Power Flow

The recent trend towards accommodating more distributed resources in power systems motivates a transition from the current highly centralized control structure to a more distributed control structure. In this paper, we propose an asynchronous iterative distributed solution approach for the DC Optimal Power Flow problem. This approach constitutes an iterative procedure that solves first order optimality conditions of the Optimal Power Flow problem in a distributed manner. In this distributed algorithm, each bus is responsible for updating a few local variables, and network coordination is achieved through local information exchanges between neighboring buses. Since information exchange at each variable update iteration might be prohibitive for an actual implementation, we propose an asynchronous iterative procedure. The asynchronous implementation divides the buses into areas, and requires the buses in the same area to exchange information after each iteration, while communication between the areas occurs only after multiple iterations. We further suggest that sharing additional information appropriately between areas without physical connections across the system can speed up the convergence of the algorithm. A proof of concept is provided using the IEEE RTS and IEEE 118-bus test systems.