Solving stochastic AC power flow via polynomial chaos expansion

The present contribution demonstrates the applicability of polynomial chaos expansion to stochastic (optimal) AC power flow problems that arise in the operation of power grids. For rectangular power flow, polynomial chaos expansion together with Galerkin projection yields a deterministic reformulation of the stochastic power flow problem that is solved numerically in a single run. From its solution, approximations of the true posterior probability density functions are obtained. The presented approach does not require linearization. Furthermore, the IEEE 14 bus serves as an example to demonstrate that the proposed approach yields accurate approximations to the probability density functions for low orders of polynomial bases, and that it is computationally more efficient than Monte Carlo sampling.