Voltage Control in Transmission Grids Considering Uncertainties of Renewable Energy Sources

Power traders and system operators need to balance the uncertain generation of renewable energy sources by adapting the dispatch of conventional power plants. This poses a challenge to voltage control in power system operation. Accordingly, this paper presents a method to determine voltage magnitude probability densities which are integrated into an optimal reactive power flow to consider an uncertain active power generation. First, the probability densities are determined by Monte Carlo simulations including a unit commitment problem to derive the dispatch of conventional power plants. Second, uncertainty restrictions are used to create soft constraints for the optimal reactive power flow, which mitigates the risk of voltage limit violations. By adapting the soft constraints slack costs, the consideration of uncertainties can be prioritized in relation to other objectives, such as the reduction of active power losses, or reactive power costs.