Decentralised coordinated secondary voltage control of multi-area power grids using model predictive control

This manuscript presents a decentralised control scheme for coordinated SVC (CSVC) of large-scale power networks. In this way, for each area of the power grid, a model predictive controller (MPC) which modifies the set points of reactive power compensators participating in CSVC algorithm is designed. The proposed controller takes into account reactive power limits of these compensation devices. The novelty of the method lies in the consideration of measured reactive power deviation on tie-lines between neighbouring areas as measured disturbance and compensation of the disturbance by regional MPC controllers. As another contribution of this work, the validation of the proposed algorithm is done in real-time simulation environment in which the decentralised MPC controllers are run in parallel on separate computational cores. The stability and robustness of the presented algorithm is validated for a large-scale realistic transmission network with 5000 buses considering standard communication protocols to send and receive the data. Simulation results show that the proposed method can regulate the voltages on the pilot buses at the desired values in the presence of load variations and communication delays. Finally, the computational burden of the proposed method is evaluated in real time.