A network-flow approach for security constrained economic dispatch of power systems

An approach based on transportation technique for economic dispatching of a generation-transmission composite system is presented. Component outages are considered. Through application of the Monte Carlo simulation and the minimum-cost maximum-flow algorithm, this approach searches the cheapest (minimum cost) path of a graph and then determines the maximum flow (minimum capacity of the branches of the cheapest path) for power dispatching. Through repetitive application of the algorithm, a near optimal power flow pattern can be determined and thus security constrained economic dispatch is obtained.