Optimal methods for power system operation and management

This research is aimed at evaluating new advances in optimization and its applications to power system operation and planning. In this paper we present unique methodologies for solving special class of power system problems that are challenged by classical operational research optimization techniques. These methodologies include network reconfiguration and Unit Commitment (UC) using Adaptive Dynamic Programming (ADP). The ADP method provides optimal reconfiguration to achieve minimum real power losses in the network. It is also used to solve the UC problem as a two-stage optimization problem whereby one stage searches for the optimal solution and the other stage evaluates the objective function of the UC problem. The performance of the proposed schemes developed to highlight new optimization applications to power system operation and management challenges was tested on small-scale power system networks.