Power Flow Based Volt/var Optimization Under Uncertainty

Volt/var optimization (VVO) is a control function that is employed in distribution systems to keep the load voltages within the standard limits, and it includes secondary objectives such as loss minimization. The power flow based VVO is the way of choice in practical applications because it can handle a variety of objective functions and provides a solution even for large-scale network instances. This paper extends the power flow based VVO to account for uncertainty in both the load values and the power generation from photovoltaic sources. The proposed method employs circular arithmetic in complex variables to compute VVO settings that guard against load uncertainty and an optimized linear decision rule that modulates the reactive power of photovoltaic inverter in function of its active power. Finally, the proposed method is tested on distribution networks with up to 3146 nodes and is shown to produce optimal solutions that are robust against power variations.