Distributed transmission expansion planning in multi-area electric power systems

This paper presents a distributed transmission expansion planning (TEP) approach for multi-area power systems. A local TEP is formulated for each area with respect to local characteristics of that area as well as power flow in existing and candidate tie-lines that interconnect the area with its neighbors. Based on the auxiliary problem principle, a distributed decision-making algorithm is presented to coordinates the local TEP problems and find an overall solution for the entire power system. Limited information, only related to the tie-lines and not local lines, is exchanged between transmission areas, so that information privacy of the planners is respected. Numerical results on the Garver Test system show the effectiveness of the proposed distributed TEP algorithm