Optimization of Transmission System Repair and Restoration with Crew Routing

Natural disasters impose significant threat to the electric grid and cause severe damages and blackouts. Presently, the power industry still relies on experiences to make recovery plans after natural disasters. In this paper, we study the repair and restoration of a transmission system. The problem consists of dispatching repair crews to fix damaged components and re-dispatching the available generators. The first step in our proposed approach is to locate central stations for the repair crews. This problem is solved by taking the location of the transmission lines and bus bars, and performing k-means to cluster all components and locating the central stations in the center of the clusters. The second step is to solve the developed MILP model with the objective of maximizing the picked-up loads. The model combines the DC optimal power flow (DCOPF) problem with the vehicle routing problem (VRP). The proposed model is tested on a modified IEEE 57-bus transmission system. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the co-optimization approach.