Author:

Keywords:

0906 Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Energy, 4008 Electrical engineering

Abstract:

In recent years, the use of HVdc technology has increased and VSC technology has enabled the realization of HVdc grids. This calls for the development of new tools to solve the transmission network expansion planning (TNEP) model. A detailed representation of the dc grid TNEP problem is highly nonlinear and more complex than the traditional ac grid expansion problem due to extra constraints and additional decision variables from the converter station model. The present day industrial solvers have difficulties to tackle the resultant MINLP problem. Therefore, the linearized `DC' approximation is often used in practice, which may not produce sufficiently accurate answers. In this paper, different relaxations and approximations of the dc grid TNEP problem are presented. The performance of each formulation is evaluated using eight test cases. Although there is no clear formulation that shows the best performance, LPAC approximation and SOC relaxations seem to provide better alternatives to `DC' approximations. The developed formulations do not guarantee feasibility and a second corrective stage is required to obtain feasible solutions.