Reverse and Forward Engineering of Local Voltage Control in Distribution Networks

Xinyang Zhou, Lijun Chen, Masoud Farivar, Zhiyuan Liu, Steven Low

Published 2018-01-06Version 1

The increasing penetration of renewable and distributed energy resources in distribution networks calls for fast and efficient distributed voltage regulation algorithms. In this work we study local Volt/VAR control by first reverse engineering the existing non-incremental control scheme together with a linearized power flow equation as a well-defined convex optimization problem, based on which we characterize the properties of its equilibrium point. We then design two incremental local algorithms for solving the same optimization problem with less restrictive convergence conditions and better voltage regulation through forward engineering. We compare the performance of the three algorithms with both analytical characterization and numerical evaluation.