Round-the-year based network reinforcement solution generator

In this paper a round-the-year based network reinforcement solution generator for the transmission expansion planning problem is proposed. The solution generator makes use of a round-the-year network security analysis which combines zonal market simulations with load flow calculations. This allows a robust evaluation of the reinforcement candidates as all the hours in the year are considered. The solver iterates sequentially over possible reinforcements until no more congestion occurs in the grid, under both normal and N-1 branch outage situations. New criteria for assessing the grid congestion level are defined and used in the evaluation of candidates. The decrease in the proposed "grid severity index" is used to measure the effectiveness of each reinforcement candidate. At the end of the process, an ordered list of reinforcements is given together with the criteria values at each reinforcement step. The New England IEEE test system is used for validating the method.