Energy and reserve scheduling with post-contingency transmission switching

For security reasons, transmission systems are designed with redundancies. Prior works have identified the benefits to system operations when the transmission assets have a pre-contingency schedule. The system operator chooses the optimal network topology regarding the contingencies, but the transmission system is not capable of performing corrective actions. This paper highlights the economic and security benefits of an enhanced system operation with the advent of a smart grid technology by introducing a novel model. The proposed model is a joint energy and reserve scheduling one that incorporates the network capability to switch transmission lines as a corrective action to enhance the system capability to circumvent contingency events. The main goal is to reduce operating costs and electric power outages by adjusting the network connectivity when a contingency occurs. In such a framework, results show that with a limited number of corrective switches, the system operator is able to circumvent a wider range of contingencies while resulting in lower operational costs and reserve levels. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.