Collaborative Distributed AC Optimal Power Flow: A Dual Decomposition Based Algorithm

We propose a dual decomposition based algorithm that solves the AC optimal power flow (ACOPF) problem in the radial distribution systems and microgrids in a collaborative and distributed manner. The proposed algorithm adopts the sec-ond-order cone program (SOCP) relaxed branch flow ACOPF model. In the proposed algorithm, bus-level agents collaboratively solve the global ACOPF problem by iteratively sharing partial variables with its 1-hop neighbors as well as carrying out local scalar computations that are derived using augmented Lagrangian and primal-dual subgradient methods. We also propose two distributed computing platforms, i. e., high-perfor-mance computing (HPC) based platform and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testbed, to validate and evaluate the proposed algorithm. The computation and communication performances of the proposed algorithm are quantified and analyzed on typical IEEE test systems. Experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm can be executed on a fully distributed computing structure and yields accurate ACOPF solution. Besides, the proposed algorithm has a low communication overhead.