Optimal distribution systems operation in the presence of wind power by coordinating network reconfiguration and demand response

Abstract This paper discusses the optimal distribution system operation in the presence of wind power by coordinating network reconfiguration and demand response method. Under the specific demand response program, the paper proposes an optimal control method of coordinating thermostatically controlled load (TCL) and battery energy storage (BES). The TCL of the demand response can be controlled in the premise of not hurting customer comfort. The risk of exceeding thermal customer comfort limit is measured by conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) index. Under the requirement of timely wind power balancing, the hourly reconfiguration plan is adopted. Because of the stochastic characteristics of wind power, this is a risk-constrained optimization problem with the objective of minimizing operation cost. Due to the time interdependence of wind power, a Markov Decision Process (MDP) formulation in combination with dynamic programming is adopted to solve the multi-stage stochastic optimization problem. The results show that coordinating reconfiguration and demand response method could significantly contribute to compensating for the forecast error of wind power, therefore, bringing considerable economic savings on operation cost in real-time electricity market.