Global Optimization of Optimal Power Flow Problems

Abstract:
With electric power networks steadily growing in the past years, improving efficiency of power distribution becomes increasingly important. In that respect, the goal of optimal power flow (OPF) is to find the optimal settings of a power network in terms of total generating costs. However, OPF problems are highly nonconvex MINLP problems that are extremely difficult to be solved to global optimality.

This project explains the concept of OPF and the major challenges related to it, examines the mathematical model, and shows the first novel attempts to improve global optimization of OPF problems.

Keywords:
global optimization, optimal power flow