A practical implementation of optimal transmission switching

Transmission elements are traditionally treated as non-dispatchable asset in the network. Co-optimizing transmission topology and generation dispatch could be a viable way to further maximize the market surplus and improve economic efficiency. This paper will discuss the mathematical formulation of optimal transmission switching. The benefit gain by deploying the transmission switching model will be assessed quantitatively. It is important to note that integer variables are introduced to model the on/off status of transmission elements. The number of integer variables being added to the mathematical formulation could be significant and hence impacts the computational performance. Some practical ways to reduce the size of integer variables are proposed. Some of proposed ideas are applied to a large-scale power system to assess the practicality and feasibility of optimal transmission switching.