Security constrained transmission expansion planning for smart transmission grids based on the AC network model

The Transmission Expansion Planning (TEP) problem is not a new issue, however, most research works presented so far use DC modeling, which can lead to very unrealistic transmission expansion plans. In order to deal with this problem, the use of the AC network model has been proposed recently by very few research works. Solving the TEP using the AC model is an extremely difficult task to deal with. Achieving this task is becoming more important due to the complexity of smart grids. In this work, it is proposed an approach to solve the TEP problem using the AC model and taking into account the (N-1) security assessment criterion. This new approach is based on a new full AC formulation, which takes into account contingencies. The optimization tool used to solve the problem is Differential Evolution (DE) and some tests are performed using the Garver 6-bus test system.