Dynamic Optimization-based Method for Determining the Flexibility Potential at Vertical System Interconnections
Sharaf Alsharif, Danila Valko, Eric MSP Veith
CIRED 2025, 28th Conference and Exhibition on Electricity Distribution
The integration of distributed energy resources (DERs) is reshaping distribution grids and changing their role in the powersystem which requires more efficient coordination between grid operators. The available power flexibility in a distribution gridcan be aggregated as active and reactive power flexibility region at the interconnection point between transmission systemand the distribution system. The Feasible Operation Region (FOR) represents the available flexibility on the P − Q plane atthis interconnection point. Existing methods for approximating the FOR include different random sampling approaches, whichgenerate valid power flow points but become computationally inefficient for large distribution grids. Other approaches areoptimization-based which solve a series of optimization problems to approximate the FOR boundary, however, such approachesface challenges as DERs increase due to non-convexity of the problem. This paper proposes a novel heuristic-based dynamicsampling strategy using the REvol evolutionary algorithm to walk along the FOR boundary efficiently. This method begins byfinding an initial boundary point and dynamically adapts its search direction using domain knowledge and population reuseto improve overall performance. Preliminary results on benchmark grids show promise, and the proposed dynamic method isexpected to outperform random sampling as the complexity of the grid increases.
2025
conference
