Search for Optimal Switching Configurations in Power Transmission System Studies.

This paper describes an approach to find the optimal switching for an electrical network, in the dc approximation. The proposed method consists in determining an upper bound and lower bound of the optimal operation cost, thus knowing a list of lines liable to be disconnected. Those two bounds are computed by means of a linear programming algorithm, based on a relaxation method. It results in very short computation times, for up to 220 nodes and 600 lines networks. If the margin between upper and lower bounds is not excessive, one can estimate the efficiency of the disconnections intended by the network manager in order to minimize the load-shedding risk.