External Network Modeling for MVAr Scheduling in Multi Area Power Systems

Multi area power systems work most often with a poor inter-regional coordination about reactive power concerns. Transmission system operators typically do not possess a detailed knowledge about voltage profile across interconnected power systems. In this context, reactive power scheduling may be inefficient and inter-regional reactive power flows become a decisive issue. This inefficiency, associated with economic constraints and increasing stress on interconnection lines, may lead to conflicts, which could be partially avoided with a better scheduling strategy. In addition to inter-utility agreements, part of the solution could be to use appropriate external network modeling. Different modeling are thus presented in this paper and illustrated with an IEEE 118 bus system with 2 separately controlled regions, whose scheduling objective is to minimize active power losses. The regional scheduling process is described and the state of the interconnected power system is compared with a global optimization. Finally, the influence of the external network modeling parameters and the accuracy of their forecast is commented.