Assessment of load supply capability with power supply bottleneck discovery

The reasonable assessment of load supply capability under various operating constraints has important value and significance to direct the optimal planning and operational management in the power system. In this paper, a straightforward method for assessing the load supply capability is presented, in which the maximization of value function of load supply margin is taken as the optimization objective and the well-developed Differential Evolution (DE) algorithm is employed to solve the optimization problem. Through this method, not only the values of the associated indices are calculated, but also the power supply bottlenecks can be identified quickly and effectively, which provide practical references for network planning, operation, and project investment decisions. Finally, the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed method are demonstrated by a case study of the actual power system in Guangdong Province, China.