Power System Network Reduction for Engineering and Economic Analysis

by
Di Shi

A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

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Doctor of Philosophy

Approved August 2012 by the

Graduate Supervisory Committee:
Daniel J. Tylavsky, Chair
Vijay Vittal
Kory Hedman
Raja Ayyanar

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

December 2012

UMI Number: 3542314

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ABSTRACT
Electric power systems are facing great challenges from environmental
regulations, changes in demand due to new technologies like electric vehicle, as
well as the integration of various renewable energy sources. These factors taken
together require the development of new tools to help make policy and investment
decisions for the future power grid. The requirements of a network equivalent to
be used in such planning tools are very different from those assumed in the
development of traditional equivalencing procedures.

This dissertation is focused on the development, implementation and

such as the Eastern Interconnection.

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verification of two network equivalencing approaches on large power systems,

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Traditional Ward-type equivalences are a class of equivalencing approaches

but this class has some significant drawbacks. It is well known that Ward-type
equivalents smear the injections of external generators over a large number of
boundary buses. For newer long-term investment applications that take into
account such things as greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations and generator
availability, it is computationally impractical to model fractions of generators
located at many buses. A modified-Ward equivalent is proposed to address this
limitation such that the external generators are moved wholesale to some internal
buses based on electrical distance. This proposed equivalencing procedure is
designed so that the retained-line power flows in the equivalent match those in the
unreduced (full) model exactly. During the reduction process, accommodations
for special system elements are addressed, including static VAr compensators

(SVCs), high voltage dc (HVDC) transmission lines, and phase angle regulators.
Another network equivalencing approach based on the dc power flow
assumptions and the power transfer distribution factors (PTDFs) is proposed. This
method, rather than eliminate buses via Gauss-reduction, aggregates buses on a
zonal basis. The bus aggregation approach proposed here is superior to the
existing bus aggregation methods in that a) under the base case, the equivalentsystem inter-zonal power flows exactly match those calculated using the fullnetwork-model b) as the operating conditions change, errors in line flows are

reduced using the proposed bus clustering algorithm c) this method is

heretofore.

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computationally more efficient than other bus aggregation methods proposed

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A critical step in achieving accuracy with a bus aggregation approach is

selecting which buses to cluster together and how many clusters are needed.
Clustering in this context refers to the process of partitioning a network into
subsets of buses. An efficient network clustering method is proposed based on the
PTDFs and the data mining techniques. This method is applied to the EI topology
using the Saguaro supercomputer at ASU, a resource with sufficient memory
and computational capability for handling this 60,000-bus and 80,000-branch
system.
The network equivalents generated by the proposed approaches are verified
and tested for different operating conditions and promising results have been
observed.

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DEDICATION
This dissertation is dedicated to my father Jianzhong Shi and my mother

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Xiuying Sun, for their endless love and support through all these years.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my deepest appreciation and thanks to my advisor, Dr.
Tylavsky, for his guidance, encouragement and invaluable support throughout this
research work. I am always impressed by his great insight and dedication to
perfection.
I am also grateful to the members of my committee, Dr. Vijay Vittal, Dr. Kory
Hedman, and Dr. Raja Ayyanar for their valuable suggestions and comments.
In addition, I would like to express my gratitude to the Power Systems

Engineering Research Center (PSERC), Consortium for Electric Reliability

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Technology Solutions (CERTS), and Demonstration of Energy-Efficient

Development (DEED) Program for the financial support provided.

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Last but not least, I would like to thank all my friends in the area of electric
power and energy systems for their support when I needed it the most.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
LIST OF TABLES...................................................................................................... ix
LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................... xi
NOMENCLATURE .................................................................................................. xv
CHAPTER
1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 1
1.1 Overview ................................................................................... 1

1.2 Literature Review...................................................................... 2

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1.3 Study Objective ......................................................................... 7

1.4 The Eastern Interconnection ................................................... 10

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1.5 Dissertation Organization ....................................................... 11

2 NETWORK REDUCTION USING BUS ELIMINATION METHOD . 13
2.1 Partition of the System ............................................................ 13
2.2 Handling of Bus Injection ....................................................... 14
2.3 Formulation of the System Equation ...................................... 15
2.4 Equivalencing the External System ........................................ 16

3 A MODIFIED WARD EQUIVALENT OF THE EASTERN

INTERCONNECTION ....................................................................... 20
3.1 Selecting Buses to Retain........................................................ 20
3.2 Handling of Special Elements ................................................. 24
3.3 Calculation of the Equivalent Network and Moving of
Generators ..................................................................................... 26
3.4 Moving the Load ..................................................................... 33
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CHAPTER

Page

4 EVALUATION OF THE REDUCED MODEL ..................................... 35

4.1 Reduced Model ....................................................................... 35
4.2 Evaluation of the Reduced Model in Terms of Power Flow
Solution ......................................................................................... 37
4.3 Evaluation of the Reduced Model in Terms of Optimal Power
Flow Solutions .............................................................................. 45
4.4 Constraining the Retained Line Flows using PTDFs .............. 51

4.4.1 Theoretical Derivation ................................................... 52

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4.4.2 Application to the 10-bus Test Case .............................. 56

5 LOSS COMPENSATION IN DC POWER FLOW MODELING ......... 64

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5.1 Formulations of Dc Power Flow Models ................................ 64

5.1.1 Classical Dc Power-Flow Model ................................... 65
5.1.2 Dc PF Model with a Single Multiplier for Loss
Compensation ......................................................................... 66
5.1.3 Dc PF Model with Zonal Multipliers for Loss
Compensation ......................................................................... 67
5.1.4 Dc PF Model with Loss Compensation for Each Line .. 67
5.2 Comparison of Dc Power-Flow Models of EI ........................ 68
5.3 Summary ................................................................................. 75
6 BUS AGGREGATION BASED NETWORK REDUCTION ................ 78
6.1 Formulation of the Problem .................................................... 78
6.1.1 Model Specification and PTDF Derivation ................... 78

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CHAPTER

Page
6.1.2 Topology of the Reduced Equivalent ............................ 79
6.1.3 Problem Formulation ..................................................... 81
6.2 Problem Solution .................................................................... 83
6.2.1 Reduced PTDF Matrix ................................................... 84
6.2.2 Equivalent TL Reactance ............................................... 86
6.3 Retaining Specific Lines in the Equivalent ............................. 90
6.4 Numerical Example ................................................................ 93

6.4.1 Base Case Performance.................................................. 94

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6.4.2 Performance Under Changed Operating Conditions ..... 99

6.5 Conclusions ........................................................................... 105

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7 BUS CLUSTERING FOR NETWORK REDUCTION ....................... 107

7.1 Background ........................................................................... 107
7.2 Proposed Bus Clustering Method ......................................... 109
7.2.1 Types of Clustering ...................................................... 109
7.2.2 Similarity Measure ....................................................... 110
7.2.3 Bus Clustering Using PTDFs ....................................... 112
7.2.4 Improved Bus Clustering ............................................. 116
7.3 Bus Clustering for the Eastern Interconnection .................... 123
8 BUS AGGREGATION BASED EQUIVALENT OF THE EASTERN
INTERCONNECTION ........................................................................... 130
8.1 Accommodation for Phase Shifting Transformers ............... 130

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CHAPTER

Page
8.2 Speeding Up the Computation of Equivalent-Branch Reactance
..................................................................................................... 132
8.3 Application to the EI ............................................................. 135
8.3.1 EI Bus Aggregation Based Equivalents ....................... 135
8.3.2 Execution Time Comparison ....................................... 138
8.3.3 Accuracy of the EI Equivalents ................................... 139
8.4 Conclusions ........................................................................... 141

9 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK ........................................... 142

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9.1 Conclusions ........................................................................... 142

9.2 Contributions......................................................................... 144

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9.3 Future Work .......................................................................... 146

REFERENCES ................................................................................................... 148
APPENDIX

A Sample of Generator Cost Data Used in OPF Test .............................. 153

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LIST OF TABLES
Table

Page

Table 3.1 Islands in the Eastern Interconnection .................................................. 24

Table 3.2 Impedance Parameters of TLs in Fig 3.4 .............................................. 28
Table 4.1 Correspondence between Colors of the Lines and Their Voltage Levels
............................................................................................................................... 37
Table 4.2 Generator Information in the EI............................................................ 39
Table 4.3 Average Errors (%) in the Line Flows for Different EI Equivalents .... 44

Table 4.4 Comparison between the Dc OPF Solutions of the Full and Equivalent

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EI Models .............................................................................................................. 50
Table 4.5 Generation under Base Case ................................................................. 58

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Table 4.6 Change in the Generation Pattern ......................................................... 59

Table 4.7 Power Flows From Full Model Under Changed Generation Pattern.... 59
Table 4.8 Power Flow in the Reduced System under Changed Generation Pattern
with Different Lines Constrained.......................................................................... 61
Table 5.1 Power Flow in the Reduced System under Changed Generation Pattern
with Different Lines Constrained.......................................................................... 76
Table 6.1 PTDF Matrix of the 6-bus Test System ................................................ 95
Table 6.2 Inter-zonal Power Flows Based on Different Equivalents at the Base
Case ....................................................................................................................... 98
Table 6.3 Errors in the Inter-zonal Power Flows as AFunction of Change of
Injection at Bus 4 ................................................................................................ 100

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Table

Page

Table 6.4 Errors in the Inter-zonal Power Flows as A Function of Change of

Injection at Bus 3 ................................................................................................ 102
Table 6.5 Errors in the Inter-zonal Power Flows as A Function of Change of
Injection at Bus 6 ................................................................................................ 104
Table 7.1 Sum of Squared Errors for Different Bus Clustering Methods for the EI
............................................................................................................................. 125
Table 8.1 Execution Time for Generating the Bus Aggregation Based Network

Equivalents for the EI ......................................................................................... 136

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Table 8.2 Execution Time Comparison Between the Proposed Method and

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Method Described in [21] ................................................................................... 138

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure

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Fig. 1.1 Difference between the traditional network reduction and the studied one
................................................................................................................................. 8
Fig. 1.2 Location of the Eastern Interconnection [23] .......................................... 11
Fig. 2.1 Interconnected power system .................................................................. 14
Fig. 2.2 Study system with Ward equivalent ........................................................ 18
Fig. 3.1 Major constraints and congestion in the ISO-New England region [25]

............................................................................................................................... 22

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Fig. 3.2 Matching constrained transmission paths with actual transmission lines
............................................................................................................................... 23

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Fig. 3.3 Model of the HVDC line ......................................................................... 26

Fig. 3.4 Reduced generator model ........................................................................ 27
Fig. 3.5 Reduced model after moving generators ................................................. 29
Fig. 3.6 Illustration of the shortest path problem .................................................. 30
Fig. 4.1 The full Eastern Interconnection model .................................................. 36
Fig. 4.2 A 273-bus reduced equivalent for the EI ................................................. 37
Fig. 4.3 Errors (MW) in the power flow on retained TLs (MW).......................... 40
Fig. 4.4 Errors (%) in the power flow on retained TLs ......................................... 41
Fig. 4.5 Average errors (%) in line flows vs. decrease (%) in coal generation .... 42
Fig. 4.6 Equivalent of EI with different number of buses .................................... 43
Fig. 4.7 Average Errors (%) in line flows for different EI equivalents ................ 44
Fig. 4.8 Full EI system and the 5222-bus equivalent ............................................ 45

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Figure

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Fig. 4.9 Summary of the dc OPF results on the full EI system............................. 46

Fig. 4.10 LMPs calculated at retained buses in the full EI system ....................... 47
Fig. 4.11 Summary of the dc OPF results on the 5222-bus EI equivalent ............ 48
Fig. 4.12 LMPs calculated at retained buses in the EI equivalent ........................ 49
Fig. 4.13 Errors in LMP for the reduced equivalent ($/MWh) ............................. 51
Fig. 4.14 Five buses with two retained lines and two equivalent lines ................. 56
Fig.4.15 10-bus system full model........................................................................ 57

Fig. 4.16 7-bus system reduced from a 10-bus model .......................................... 58

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Fig. 4.17 Average errors (MW) in the retained line flows for the 4 cases ............ 61
Fig. 4.18 Average errors (%) in the retained line flows for the 4 cases ................ 62

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Fig. 5.1 A general transmission line model .......................................................... 65

Fig. 5.2 A general branch model used in dc power flow ...................................... 66
Fig. 5.3 A general transformer model with off-nominal tap and (or) non-zero
phase shift ............................................................................................................. 68
Fig. 5.4 The numerical simulations conducted ..................................................... 69
Fig. 5.5 Branch MW-flow difference between ac and the classical dc PF models
.............................................................................................................................. .70
Fig. 5.6 Branch MW-flow errors (%) of the classical dc PF model ..................... 71
Fig. 5.7 Branch MW-flow difference between ac PF model and the dc PF model
with single multiplier for loss compensation ........................................................ 71
Fig. 5.8 Branch MW-flow errors (%) of the dc PF model with single multiplier for
loss compensation ................................................................................................. 72

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Figure

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Fig. 5.9 Branch MW-flow difference between ac PF model and dc PF model with
zonal multipliers for loss compensation ............................................................... 73
Fig. 5.10 Branch MW-flow errors (%) of the dc PF model with zonal multipliers
for loss compensation ........................................................................................... 74
Fig. 5.11 Branch MW-flow difference between ac PF model and dc PF model
with loss compensation for each line .................................................................... 74
Fig. 5.12 Branch MW-flow errors (%) of the dc PF model with loss compensation

for each line........................................................................................................... 75

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Fig. 6.1 Topology of a five-zone system and its equivalent ................................. 80

Fig. 6.2 The original 11-bus 4-zone system and the corresponding equivalent ... 91

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Fig. 6.3 Modified system zones to retain specific TLs ......................................... 92

Fig. 6.4 The original 6-bus system........................................................................ 94
Fig. 6.5 The resulting 4-bus equivalent of the 6-bus system ................................ 95
Fig. 6.6 Average error in inter-zonal power flows as a function of changes in Pinj(4)
............................................................................................................................. 101
Fig. 6.7 Average error in inter-zonal power flows as a function of changes in
Pinj(3) .................................................................................................................... 103
Fig. 6.8 Average error in inter-zonal power flows as a function of changes in
Pinj(6) .................................................................................................................... 105
Fig. 7.1 Partitional clustering vs. hierarchical clustering.................................... 110
Fig. 7.2 Illustration of the cosine similarity ........................................................ 111
Fig. 7.3 Formulation of the matrix ...................................................................... 113

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Figure

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Fig. 7.4 Illustration of the k-means clustering algorithm .................................... 115

Fig. 7.5 Clustering with the k-means algorithm .................................................. 120
Fig. 7.6 Clustering with the k-means++ algorithm ............................................. 121
Fig. 7.7 Flowchart of the proposed bus clustering algorithm ............................. 122
Fig. 7.8 Designated branches in the Eastern Interconnection ............................. 123
Fig. 7.9 Bus clustering results for the Eastern Interconnection .......................... 126
Fig. 7.10 Bus clustering results for the Eastern Interconnection in logarithmic

scale..................................................................................................................... 126

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Fig. 7.11 AEPB as a function of cluster number for k-means++ ........................ 129
Fig. 8.1 Bus aggregation based equivalents of the EI ......................................... 135

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Fig. 8.2 Speed up in line reactance computation as a function of size of the

equivalent ............................................................................................................ 137
Fig. 8.3 Average errors in the inter-zonal power flows for different EI equivalents
............................................................................................................................. 140

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NOMENCLATURE
Alternating current

AEP

American Electric Power

Bbranch

L-by-N branch susceptance matrix

Bbus

N-by-N bus susceptance matrix

Bflow

L-by-N branch susceptance matrix of the full system

c(t)

Centroid of the tth cluster

L-by-N node-branch incidence matrix of the full

system

CR

LR-by-NR node-branch incidence matrix of the reduced

system

C(pGi)

Operating cost of generator i

d(a, b)

Standard Euclidean distance between vector a and b

dc

Direct current

ej
EHV
EI

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diag(x)

ac

Diagonal matrix with the diagonal elements of x

The jth unit vector
Extra high voltage
Eastern Interconnection

ERCOT

Electric Reliability Council of Texas

Gk

The kth injection group

GHG

Greenhouse gas

h(t)

Member of the tth cluster

PTDF matrix with cardinality of L-by-N

H'

PTDF matrix with the column corresponding to the

slack bus eliminated

HVDC

High-voltage direct current

xv

Generator output current at bus i

I Li

Load current at bus i

li

Loss at terminal i of transmission line (i, j) in a dc

power flow model

lj

Loss at terminal j of transmission line (i, j) in a dc

power flow model

Number of lines in the full system

Le

Number of inter-group lines in the original network

Li

Number of intra-group lines in the original network

LMP

Locational marginal price

LR

Number of lines in the reduced system

LTC

Load tap change

mGi

Number of generators in group (area) i

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I Gi

Number of branches needed to be monitored in the full

system

MMWG

Multi-regional Modeling Working Group

( LimMVA )i

MVA rating of transmission line i

Number of buses in the reduced network

Number of non-slack buses in the full network

NBi

Number of buses that are directly connected to bus i in

the equivalent network

Nbranch

Number of designated branches in the system

NR

Number of non-slack buses in the reduced network

OPF

Optimal power flow

shift
Pbus

Vector that compensates the effects of phase shifters

in the dc bus power injection equations

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Vector that compensates the effects of phase shifters

in the dc branch power flow equations

shift
Pbranch

Power flow at the sending end of a HVDC line

pdc_loss

Power loss on a HVDC line

pdc_to

Power flow at the receiving end of a HVDC line

PF

Power flow

Pflow

L-by-1 branch power flow vector

pGi

Active power output of generator i in MW

PGi

Active power output of a generator at bus i

Pinj

N-by-1 bus net injection vector of the full system

(Pinj)R

NR-by-1 bus net injection vector of the reduced system

PLi

Active power component of a load at bus i

Pi->j

Branch power flow from bus i to j

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Pflow

pdc_from

L-by-1 power flow vector in the original network

inter zonal
Pflow

LR-by-1 inter-zonal power flow vector in the full

system

inter zonal
( Pflow
)R

LR-by-1 inter-zonal power flow vector in the reduced

system

Pinj

N-by-1 net injection vector of the full network

(Pinj)R

NR-by-1 net injection vector of the reduced network

PTDF

Power transfer distribution factor

QGi

Reactive power output of a generator at bus i

QLi

Reactive power component of a load at bus i

REI

Radial equivalent independent

SVC

Static var compensator

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Sum of square error

St

The tth cluster

TL

Transmission line

TTC

Total transfer capability

Vi

Voltage at bus i

VFT

Variable frequency transformer

WECC

Western Electricity Coordinating Council

L-by-1 branch reactance vector of the full system

xR

LR-by-1 branch reactance vector of the reduced system

N-by-1 vector containing the bus voltage angles of the

full system

ij*

Difference of the voltage angle between zone i and j

The single multiplier for loss compensation in dc

power flow modeling

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SSE

Multiplier at terminal i of transmission line (i,j) for

loss compensation in dc power flow modeling
Multiplier at terminal j of transmission line (i,j) for
loss compensation in dc power flow modeling
LR-by-NR matrix representing each zones contribution
to the inter-zonal power flows

L-by-N PTDF matrix of the full system

m-by-N PTDF matrix whose rows are extracted from

the full-system PTDF matrix

LR-by-NR PTDF matrix of the reduced system

flow

LR-by-L matrix that sums up the line flows

NR-by-N matrix used to sum the bus injections of the

reduced system

LRNR-by-LR matrix whose null space includes xR

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l-by-Le matrix to sum flows

injection

n-by-N matrix to sum bus injections

()*

Complex conjugate of a complex number

()T

Transpose of a matrix

||||

Euclidean norm of a vector

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flow

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CHAPTER 1 .
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Overview
With the growing concern regarding climate change, the awareness of the
possible consequences of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other pollutant
emissions has come to the fore [1]. The power industry is facing great challenge
from environmental regulations, since the generation of electricity is responsible

for one third of all U.S. GHG emissions. In addition, the electric power industry
faces the possibility of greatly increased demand from new technologies like

technologies.

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electrical vehicles as well as the grid integration of various renewable

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These factors taken together require the development of new tools (such as the
superOPF being developed at Cornell [2]) for making policy and investment
decisions that take into account both the market structure and GHG regulations.
For power market analysis and system planning studies, the most accurate way is
to use the full system ac model. However, market analysis and system planning
with the full model of a large-scale power system is prohibitively expensive in
terms of dollars and computation time. More specifically, the computational
demands for the studies needed to determine optimal future power-system designs
that will maintain present reliability levels while enabling the use of the most
efficient generators in a market based power system exceed present computational
capabilities.

One practical way to complete these calculations is to use a small, equivalent

network. The fly in the ointment with using a reduced system model is that
network equivalents, which approximate the model from which they originate,
presently yield OPF results that are too inaccurate. Even though researchers are
looking at generating network equivalents acceptable for market simulations, no
satisfactorily accurate equivalencing method currently exists.
This dissertation is focused on the development, implementation and
verification of two novel network equivalencing approaches with their

applications to large power systems, such as the Eastern Interconnection. The first

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proposed method extends the idea of the Ward equivalent (bus elimination); the
second one is based on the idea of bus aggregation rather than bus elimination. In

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the discussion of these two methods, accommodations for special system elements
are addressed: static VAr compensators (SVCs), high voltage dc (HVDC)
transmission lines, and phase angle regulators. In addition, a novel network
clustering algorithm for bus aggregation based network reduction is proposed in
this work.

1.2 Literature Review

In general, network reduction techniques are divided into static and dynamic
based on the representation of the model and its intended use. For static reduction,
the equivalent models a snapshot of the system and is intended for static analysis
only: power flow calculations, system operation studies and planning analysis. In
the dynamic reduction, the reduced model is intended for the analysis of system
dynamic effects including large scale power system transient stability analysis
2

with large disturbances, large scale power system off-line dynamic stability
analysis with small disturbance, and large scale power system on-line security
assessment [3]. In this dissertation, only the static reduction is of interest and,
therefore, the term network reduction refers only to the power system static
reduction.
There currently exist four types of network reduction methods: the Ward
equivalent and its variations, the REI equivalent and its variations, the OPF-based
equivalent, and the market-based equivalent [4].

Among all the network reduction methods, the Ward equivalent is probably

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the most widely used one. This technique was originally proposed by Ward in [5]
and further discussed in [6]-[8], [11]. The Ward reduction partitions a system into

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internal subsystem, external subsystems and boundary buses. The internal

subsystem will be kept intact during the reduction while the external subsystem
will be removed by Gaussian elimination.

The classical Ward reduction has two versions, the difference between which
lies in the way the bus power injections are handled. These two versions are
usually referred as the Ward injection method and Ward admittance method. In the
Ward injection method, all the bus power injections are converted into constant
current injections before the reduction process, and are converted back to constant
power injections after reduction. In the Ward admittance method, however, all the
bus powers are converted to admittance before the reduction. The first one is
given preference due to its reliability and attractive properties for on-line use.
Detail discussion of these two versions is conducted in [11].
3