Multi-Time Step Service Restoration for Advanced Distribution Systems and Microgrids

Modern power systems are facing increased risk of disasters that can cause extended outages. The presence of remote control switches, distributed generators (DGs), and energy storage systems (ESS) provides both challenges and opportunities for developing post-fault service restoration methodologies. Inter-temporal constraints of DGs, ESS, and loads under cold load pickup conditions impose extra complexity on problem formulation and solution. In this paper, a multi-time step service restoration methodology is proposed to optimally generate a sequence of control actions for controllable switches, ESSs, and dispatchable DGs to assist the system operator with decision making. The restoration sequence is determined to minimize the unserved customers by energizing the system step by step without violating operational constraints at each time step. The proposed methodology is formulated as a mixed-integer linear programming model and can adapt to various operation conditions. The proposed method is validated through several case studies that are performed on modified IEEE 13-node and IEEE 123-node test feeders.