Management of Flexible Resources for Voltage Regulation of Distribution Systems

As a result of the current restructuring procedure in power systems, renewable energy sources (RESs) are increasingly integrated into distribution systems. Respectively, while, the installation of RESs would benefit the system by securing the power supply, decreasing the power losses, and addressing the environmental concerns; their high penetration could cause operational problems in the system. In this regard, the traditional operational procedures seem not to be adequate for ensuring the voltage regulation in active distribution systems. In this respect, efficient scheduling of flexible resources should be taken into account by distribution system operators (DSOs) in order to resolve the potential curtailment of RESs due to voltage problems in the grid. Consequently, this paper aims to develop a hierarchical management scheme to efficiently reschedule the flexible resources in a multi-agent distribution system to address voltage problems raised by the high penetration of RESs. Respectively, Stackelberg game technique is employed to model the interaction between DSO and independent agents in the system, where DSO acts as the leader and agents are conceived as the followers. Finally, the proposed approach is implemented on the 37-bus test system to analyze the effectiveness of the proposed methodology in resolving the voltage problems in the grid.