Distributing Load Flow Computations Across System Operators Boundaries Using the Newton–Krylov–Schwarz Algorithm Implemented in PETSc

Abstract

The upward trends in renewable energy penetration, cross-border flow volatility and electricity actors’ proliferation pose new challenges in the power system management. Electricity and market operators need to increase collaboration, also in terms of more frequent and detailed system analyses, so as to ensure adequate levels of quality and security of supply. This work proposes a novel distributed load flow solver enabling for better cross border flow analysis and fulfilling possible data ownership and confidentiality arrangements in place among the actors. The model exploits an Inexact Newton Method, the Newton⁻Krylov⁻Schwarz method, available in the portable, extensible toolkit for scientific computation (PETSc) libraries. A case-study illustrates a real application of the model for the TSO⁻TSO (transmission system operator) cross-border operation, analyzing the specific policy context and proposing a test case for a coordinated power flow simulation. The results show the feasibility of performing the distributed calculation remotely, keeping the overall simulation times only a few times slower than locally.

Keywords

• cross-border flows
• distributed computing
• inexact Newton methods
• load flow analysis
• PETSc
• grid operators cooperation
• smart grids