Multi-Area-Multi-Stage Based Self-Healing Distribution Network Planning and Operation

Extreme events such as earthquakes, floods, or wars could cause severe grid faults and large-scale outages in the distribution network. The active islanding technology can be used for self-healing of multiple outage areas with distributed resources, smart distribution facilities, and advanced controlling methods. The facilities related to the self-healing consist of relays, switches, distributed resources, and power electronics based soft open points (SOPs). However, the self-healing effect depends on not only the location, capability, and function of these facilities, but also the recovery process should be comprehensively considered and coordinated since the multi-stage recovery strategies are deeply coupled. These recovery stages usually consist of the relaying process, grid partition with smart switches (SSWs), resupply by distributed resources, and interconnection with SOPs. For the first time, this paper proposes a multi-area-multi-stage (MAMS) self-healing recovery area (RA) planning-operation collaborative approach considering the recovery sequence. First, the multiple self-healing stages of flexible RAs are defined and introduced. Second, the time-variant topological and operational constraints are proposed to represent the coupling relationships at different stages. Finally, the hybrid controllable load deployment strategy is used to compensate for the limited resource capacity in RA restoration. The effectiveness of the proposed collaborative model is verified by illustrative case studies.