Voltage Stability Constrained Low-Carbon Generation & Transmission Expansion Planning

Environmental concerns and limits on CO2 emissions entail expanding the capacity of renewable generation units. However, the increase in the renewable generation capacity can significantly impact the hosting power system voltage stability. Therefore, the consideration of voltage stability in the expansion planning problem is of an increasing importance. In this paper, we present a multi-stage low carbon voltage stability constrained generation and transmission expansion planning (G&TEP) model. The developed G&TEP model accounts for the investment and operation costs of generation units and transmission lines, as well as the load and wind curtailment costs, and determines the optimal installation year and location for transmission lines and generation units to meet the anticipated load demand increase. The voltage collapse proximity indicator (VCPI), which is a line voltage stability index based technique, is used to account for the voltage stability of the developed expansion plans. To this end, the VCPI is incorporated in the G&TEP model to guarantee an acceptable level of voltage stability for the developed expansion plans over the planning horizon. The effectiveness of the proposed framework is validated using numerical cases studies on the IEEE 24-bus RTS test system developed in General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS) environment.