Transmission expansion planning considering economic and reliability criteria

This paper presents a transmission expansion planning model which combines the advantages of both the traditional reliability-based transmission planning model and economic (also known as value-based, economics-based, or market-based) transmission planning model. Reliability-based transmission planning tries to install new lines at minimal cost while fulfilling system reliability criteria. Economic transmission planning, on the other hand, seeks investment opportunities so that network expansions can generate more economic benefits than the costs. Benders decomposition technique is employed to separate the planning problem into one master problem, which makes investment decisions, and two sets of sub-problems, which evaluate the reliability and economic performance of the electric system, respectively. The proposed model is illustrated on a 5-bus system.