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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 28, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2013

Optimal Transmission Switching Considering Voltage

Security and N-1 Contingency Analysis
Mojtaba Khanabadi, Hassan Ghasemi, Senior Member, IEEE, and Meysam Doostizadeh

AbstractIn power system operation, transmission congestion

can drastically limit more economical generation units from being
dispatched. In this paper, optimal transmission switching as a congestion management tool is utilized to change network topology
which, in turn, would lead to higher electricity market efficiency.
Transmission switching (TS) is formulated as an optimization
problem to determine the most influential lines as candidates
for disconnection. In order to relieve congestion without violating voltage security, TS is embedded in an optimal power flow
(OPF) problem with AC constraints and binary variables, i.e., a
mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem, solved
using Benders decomposition. Also, a methodology is presented
which provides a guideline to the system operator showing the
order of switching manoeuvres that have to be followed in order
to relieve congestion. It is also shown that TS based on DC optimal
power flow (DCOPF) formulation as used in the literature may
jeopardize system security and in some cases result in voltage
collapse due to the shortcomings in its simplified models. In order
to evaluate the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed
method, the IEEE 57-bus and IEEE 300-bus test systems are used.

Marginal value in violation with changing in

state of Line .
Binary variable which represents the state of
Line (0: open, 1: closed).
Total generation cost in $/h.
,
,

Voltage magnitude and angle mismatches at Bus

.
Supply bidding price from generator at Bus .

Parameters:
Lower and upper limits for voltage angle at Bus
.

Index TermsBenders decomposition, optimal power flow

(OPF) and N-1 contingency, transmission congestion, transmission switching (TS).

NOMENCLATURE
Indices:
,

Active and reactive power mismatches at Bus

in p.u.

Lower and upper limits for voltage magnitude

at Bus .

Lower and upper limits for active power

generation at Bus .

Lower and upper limits for reactive power

generation at Bus .

Lower and upper limits for active power flow at

Line in p.u.

Lower and upper limits for apparent power flow

at Line in p.u.

Index for bus.

Index for contingency.
,

, Number of buses, generators, loads and lines,

respectively.

Variables:
,

Voltage magnitude and angle at Bus .

,

Active and reactive power demand at Bus in

p.u.

Active and reactive power generation at Bus

in p.u.
Active power flow at Line
Rective power flow at Line
Apparent power flow at Line

Maximum number of line switchings allowed.

Big positive multiplier.

in p.u.

Number of iteration.

in p.u.
in p.u.

Matrices:

Marginal value in violation with increase

generation for unit .

Admittance matrix.
Susceptance matrix.

Manuscript received January 13, 2012; revised May 10, 2012 and June 18,
2012; accepted June 30, 2012. Date of publication July 30, 2012; date of current
version January 17, 2013. Paper no. TPWRS-00044-2012.
The authors are with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran (e-mail: m.khanabadi@alumni.ut.ac.ir;
h.ghasemi@ut.ac.ir; m.doostizadeh@alumni.ut.ac.ir).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRS.2012.2207464

Conductance matrix.
Admittance angle matrix.
,

0885-8950/$31.00 2012 IEEE

Sub-matrices of Jacobian matrix.

KHANABADI et al.: OPTIMAL TRANSMISSION SWITCHING CONSIDERING VOLTAGE SECURITY AND N-1 CONTINGENCY ANALYSIS

I. INTRODUCTION

HE open access transmission plays a vital role in competitive electricity markets. As in these markets, it is always
desirable to transmit power to all parts of network without violating system security constraints. The electrical power that can
be transmitted between two locations in a network is limited
by several security criteria such as voltage limits, lines thermal
limits and stability limits. When power cannot be transmitted
to a part of network because of violating one or more of the
mentioned security criteria, the system is said to be congested
and consequently market power problem is likely to occur [1].
When congestion occurs, the most economical generation units
cannot be fully dispatched to meet the demand. Thus, expensive
generators have to be dispatched instead which would lead
to market inefficiency. Therefore, congestion problem in a
transmission system should be addressed, which is typically
handled by means of transmission congestion management
schemes. These schemes are mostly based on conventional
optimal power flow (OPF) with objective functions such as [2]:
minimizing the number of control actions;
minimizing the cost of re-dispatch [3];
minimizing the deviations between pre and post-dispatch
systems.
As one of the important and suitable solutions for congestion management, optimal network reconfiguration has
been employed by operators to improve operating conditions.
Generally, two types of switches are used for this purpose;
sectionalizing switches and tie switches, which are normally
closed or normally open, respectively. From time to time, the
network operators change the state of these switches in order
to enhance system security. The network switching can be
classified into two main categories [4]: 1) opening or closing
branches and 2) substation switching.
Since 1980, some research work has been conducted on using
switching for network reconfiguration. Switching was first introduced in [5], in which it was used as a tool for preventive control actions. The authors in [6] have used corrective switching
to relieve line overloading. Switching actions such as load shedding and network switching are formulated as a mixed-integer
problem (MIP) [7]. In [8], DC load flow and line outage distribution factors have been used to determine the line switching that
would eliminate network congestions without making overloads
in other parts of the system. The busbar reconfiguration is also
utilized to solve the branch overload problem [9]. The z-matrix
method is employed in [10] for finding the most influential lines
to be switched to resolve overloading problems.
The authors in [11] have employed the fuzzy set algorithm to
construct preventive and corrective switching actions in distribution network. In [12], in order to reconfigure and balance load
at a distribution system, a heuristic algorithm is used. In [13], a
sensitivity matrix is used to find which line(s) switching has the
highest impact on overloaded line(s). A discrete optimization
algorithm has been employed in [14] to find optimal switching
actions which alleviate overloads while avoiding potential overvoltage conditions. In [15], the authors have proposed a method
which uses analytical equivalence of corrective switching for a
systematic search to enhance system security. Reference [16]

543

provides a comprehensive review about concept of corrective

switching actions.
The application of TS in transmission expansion planning is
demonstrated in [17] where switching actions are employed as
powerful tools for respecting system security and decreasing
total operation cost. TS in security-constrained unit commitment (SCUC) is discussed in [18] where the SCUC problem is
divided into the unit commitment (UC) master problem and the
TS subproblem; TS subproblem uses the master problems solutions to find optimal dispatch of generation units considering
the system constraints.
The authors in [19] and [20] have proposed an approach based
on DC optimal power flow (DCOPF) which utilizes TS in order
to remove congestion. They have also used TS to relieve congestion with contingency analysis where problem is formulated
as an MIP and solved based on DCOPF [21].
However, they have not examined the impact of switching on
important system variables such as bus voltages and transmission losses. A DCOPF followed by an ACOPF is used in [22]
which alleviates congestion and takes into consideration the impacts of switching on mentioned variables. In each search trial
of the proposed procedure in [22], only one switching is performed and this cycle will continue until no further optimal TS
can be found. Since the optimal TS is selected based on a DC
model, the output of this optimization problem might not be feasible in an AC model. Therefore, the algorithm in [22] may not
be able to alleviate congestion in all conditions.
It is good to mention that other aspects of opening a line and
what consequences it can have in a power system should also
be considered; e.g., some unstable transients may get triggered
and/or the voltage stability margin for the post-switching system
may not meet the criteria specified by the system operational
requirements.
In this paper, an optimal TS based on an ACOPF is used
which does not suffer from the mentioned shortcomings in the
method in [22] and is also able to respect voltage security criteria in the TS problem which has not been addressed in previous literature work. The resulted mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem is formulated such that efficient
and robust Benders decomposition algorithm is utilized to solve
it. This would ensure that the solution is not trapped at a locally
optimal point which can be encountered in famous solvers such
as BARON and DICOPT.
This paper is structured as follows: Section II provides a
background on optimal TS based on an ACOPF in full details.
Section III represents solution method used to solve the corresponding MINLP problem using Benders decomposition.
Section IV represents the results of applying the proposed
method in the IEEE 57-bus test system. Also, the results of TS
based on DCOPF are provided and are compared to the ones
of TS with AC constraints. The impact of using tighter voltage
bands is discussed and analyzed in Section IV-C. Section V
proposes a method to find the order of switchings that have to
be followed by the system operator. In Section VI, the result of
TS with AC constraints based on priority method in the IEEE
300-bus test system is discussed. Section VII summarizes the
main findings of this work.

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 28, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2013

Fig. 1. Block diagram of master problem procedure.

II. OPTIMAL TRANSMISSION SWITCHING BASED ON ACOPF

Fig. 2. Block diagram of subproblems.

Figs. 1 and 2 show the presented outline of the optimal TS to

solve transmission congestion problem in the system. Here, the
number of switching actions
in the search trial of procedure
can be greater than one and is not limited. However, the number
of switching actions in a real power system is restricted due to
the reliability of power system. Thus, one may enter a maximum
for number of switching actions
as shown in (9).
As shown in Fig. 1, an ACOPF with no switching is first run.
If no congestion occurs, no switching is required and the results
do not need to be changed. In case of encountering congestion,
some line flows would reach their limits and consequently economic supply offers would not be fully dispatched.
The system operator can use switching to fully or partially
alleviate congestion problem. The output of this optimization
problem would identify line(s) that have to be outaged so that
the congestion can be relieved. Note that since AC constraints
are used here, it is possible that no optimal TS is found due to
the fact that opening lines may result in insecure voltage levels.
Within the context of TS based on DCOPF [19][21], some lines
maybe identified as candidate lines for switching to remove congestion but in a real power system these TS may lead to bus
voltages that do not respect voltage security requirements. This
fact has been demonstrated in the test system results used in
Section IV.
In this paper, first, optimal TS problem is formulated as an
MINLP. The main purpose is to minimize the overall cost of
generation with regards to physical system constrains such as
line thermal and bus voltage limits. For example, the bus angles across the system have to be maintained between upper and
lower limits or bus voltages across the system should not exceed

certain levels. The line or lines that should be switched are determined by means of an ACOPF:
(1)
s.t.
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)
where the voltage angle at each bus could change between
and
. Also,
,
and
is obtained from following equations:
(10)

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545

s.t.
(11)

(14)
(15)
(16)
(17)
(18)
(19)

(12)

(20)
The results of this optimization problem determine which line
or lines have to be outaged.
III. SOLUTION METHOD
The TS problem formulated in the previous section is an
MINLP problem. It should be noted that available solvers for
MINLP problems, in particular BARON and DICOPT, do
not perform well to solve the proposed problem, in terms of
computational time and convergence characteristics [23]. Also,
in this case, the solution might not be a global one. To avoid
this issue, more practical search algorithms such as Benders
decomposition [24] have to be employed. Therefore, Benders
decomposition approach which has been used widely [25][29]
is applied here to solve the MINLP problem.
The first stage in Benders decomposition is a mixed integer
linear problem denoted as master problem and the second one
is a nonlinear subproblem. The master problem determines
system configuration and active power generation of each unit
(Fig. 1). Although line active power flow limits are checked
in the master problem, bus voltage limits and reactive power
distribution in power system are not considered in the master
problem. Therefore, the subproblem checks the feasibility
of the master problem solution from the viewpoint of AC
constraints. Then, violations could be relieved by adjusting the
power generation of existing units or modifying the list of lines
to be switched previously determined in the master problem.
It should be noted that this approach is incapable of finding
TS actions which are feasible and provide cost saving in ACOPF
perspective while being infeasible and/or not providing cost
saving in the DCOPF formulation. Note that these indicate the
cases that for instance, in the AC model, one line is loaded
very close to its limit while being overloaded in the DC model.
System operators usually use security margins, e.g., 5% to account for errors in models and data; therefore, these cases would
be likely to be filtered out. The TS subproblem consists of two
main blocks as shown in Fig. 2. The TS feasibility check examines the master problem solution to find whether a feasible TS
solution can be found in the base case. Furthermore, the subcontingencies.
problem performs security analysis for
More details about master problem and subproblems are provided in the following subsections.

(21)
is the subproblem cost at iteration
where
;
and
are the fixed values calculated by master
; and
in (18) and (19) is a large
problem at iteration
positive multiplier greater than or equal to
[21]. Note that when
, the value of
is not important
would impose a zero power flow on Line
whereas
(17) while allowing different angles on lines both ends using
(18) and (19).
The first term of the objective function (13) represents the
operation cost. The second one means, through the real variable
, the feasibility cost due to an underestimation of the subproblem cost (system losses). The (21), referred to as Benders
linear cut, couples master problem and subproblem by updating
through
and
at each iteration. The formulation uses
specifying which line or lines have to be
binary variables
outaged from the test system to relieve congestion. Besides, in
order to keep the system reliability on an acceptable level, the
number of lines connected to each bus is restricted to be higher
than or equal to two after any switching action. Note that for a
bus with only two connections, losing a connection would drastically reduce its reliability. Mathematically, one has
(22)
in which

is the set of lines connected to Bus .

B. Subproblem Formulation
As it was discussed earlier, TS subproblem consists of two
stages, TS feasibility check and security analysis:
1) Feasibility Check: It tests the feasibility of master
problem solution. This stage is an NLP problem and its objective function is

A. Master Problem Formulation

(23)

The objective of the master problem seeks to minimize the

overall operation system cost which is given in (13). The master
problem formulation is as follows:
(13)

s.t.

(24)

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 28, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2013

(25)
(26)
(27)
where
and
are positive slack variables.
and
are the fixed value calculated by master problem. The other
constraints for this optimization problem are the same as (3) and
(5)(12). Note that the solution obtained for the NLP problem
may not be a global solution due to the non-convex, non-linear
nature of the problem. Also, if the solver is not able to find
a solution, it does not necessarily means that the problem is
infeasible.
The solution to the subproblem provides Lagrangian coeffiand dual values
in the current iteracients
and
are used in the benders cuts formulation
tion. Then,
in the following iteration (21). In this subproblem, transmission
flow and bus voltage violations are relieved by adjusting active
, Benders cut (21)
and reactive power injections. When
will be formed and added to Master problem. The subproblem
cuts are updated in each iteration leading to an update in the
master problem solution; this iterative procedure continues until
converged solution is obtained. The problem convergence criterion is defined as follows:
(28)
where is a small positive number adjusted by the user. The
lower the , the higher the accuracy and the program extra time.
2) Security Analysis: The solution of TS feasibility check
subproblem has to be checked from the viewpoint of system
security. At this stage, AC security criteria are tested for the
contingencies. The criteria include voltage levels and
is
AC line flows. For this purpose, a binary parameter
introduced to model each transmission lines status in Continrepresents the loss of Line in Contingency
gency .
:
if
(29)
if
This binary parameter is multiplied by admittance matrix and
consequently transmission line outages have been modeled
using a for loop over set of lines.
The objective of this stage is to solve a set of power flow
problems. This can be done based on Newton-Raphson method
by minimizing real and reactive power mismatches while representing voltage and flow limits. The feasibility cost is thus
minimized based on notation used in [26]:

(30)
,
,
, and
are positive slack
where
variables which model fictitious generation in each bus in order
to make the power flow equations feasible. The corresponding
constraints are

(31)

(32)
(33)
and
are the bus voltage and apparent power flow
where
after applying contingency , respectively.
Here, (30)(33) represent an LP problem which are used in
an iterative method yielding power flow solution. The iterative
method is as follows:
Step 1) Calculate Jacobian sub-matrices and the initial bus
and
based on the values
mismatches
calculated in the previous subproblem.
Step 2) Use an LP solver to minimize the objective function
(30) subject to the corresponding constraints.
, ,
, and
using calculated
Step 3) Update
and
.
Step 4) Stop the process, if the objective function is smaller
than a threshold and the mismatches are less than a
specified value. Otherwise, go to Step 2.
If for a specific contingency, the objective function (30) is
higher than the specified threshold after several iterations, it
means that the contingency does not pass the security analysis check. Therefore, the set of identified lines for switching
is invalid and should be removed from the search space. This
can be done by adding a new inequality constraint (34) to the
master problem. This new constraint prevents the program from
giving the previously identified invalid set of candidate lines for
switching:
(34)
where is the set of candidate lines leading to insecure system
conditions. In rare conditions, it is possible that by opening one
or more lines in addition to the lines in , the contingency
would pass the security analysis check. However, from practical point of view, the system operator has to open one line at a
time (not all identified lines simultaneously). Therefore, since
would lead to an insecure condiopening the set of lines
tion, they should be removed from the search space which is
addressed by (34).
IV. IEEE 57-BUS TEST SYSTEM
The feasibility of the mentioned method has been tested in the
IEEE 57-bus test system. System data for this test system is provided in [30] and bid information is given in the Appendix. In
this system, there are 7 generators along with 80 transmission
lines. Also, the system provides 1250.8 MW active power to
serve the loads. Here, both Gen. 1 and Gen. 8 have lower marginal prices compared to other generation units. Hence, these
generators are economical generation units and it is desirable
to fully dispatch without violating any security criteria. In this
section, first, based on the gathered bid information from generators, an ACOPF is run to identify the transmission congestion in the system. The results indicate that Lines 115, 89 and
729 are congested resulting in utilizing more expensive generators to meet the demand. In order to relieve congestion, the TS
problem has been utilized in two different forms: TS based on
DCOPF and TS based on proposed method with AC constraints.
The TS based on DCOPF has been used widely in the literature;
therefore, we here used it as well to demonstrate its shortcoming
and the necessity of checking AC constraints.

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547

Fig. 3. Bus voltages for TS with AC constraints; the IEEE 57-bus test system.

TABLE I
DISPATCH RESULTS FOR PRE AND POST-TS SYSTEMS BASED
ON DCOPF; THE IEEE 57-BUS TEST SYSTEM

TABLE II
DISPATCH RESULTS FOR PRE AND POST-TS SYSTEMS WITH
AC CONSTRAINTS; THE IEEE 57-BUS TEST SYSTEM

A. TS Based on DCOPF
The problem is formulated as an MIP with binary variables
[19], [20] and is solved in BARON. The results indicate that
Lines 115, 729, 89, 2238, and 4849 are selected as candidate lines that have to be switched (opened) to remove transmission congestion problem. The results of opening these lines
are provided in Table I. By opening the mentioned lines, the
cheaper generators are dispatched to higher levels. Therefore,
the total generation cost has been decreased from $19 021/h to
$14 835/h. Also, the LMP at some buses will be lower compared to the case that congestion exist. Although this method
successfully removes congestion and dispatches as more economical units as possible, the system security is jeopardized. By
opening the identified lines in an AC power flow program, the
results show that this system would experience a voltage collapse, i.e., the solution diverges, which is not acceptable from
the viewpoint of the system operator.
B. TS With AC Constraints
In this part, TS is formulated as described in Section III and is
solved using Benders decomposition method. The results yield
that Lines 115 and 34 are identified as the ones to be outaged
in order to remove congestion while respecting security and AC
constraints across the system. The impact of TS is investigated
by means of some system variables such as generation dispatch,
system losses, LMP variations and voltage profile. Note that
only two lines (as opposed to five lines in the DCOPF case)
are selected as candidate lines for switching since opening more
number of lines would lead to insecure system.
1) Generation Dispatch and Losses: Table II shows the results of generation dispatch and total generation cost before and

opening lines. As a result of opening two identified lines, the

total generation cost has been decreased and cheaper generators
are dispatched to higher levels; however, cost reduction in this
case is not as much as DCOPF case (17.5% compared to 22%
reduction). The active and reactive system losses have been increased in post-switching system as expected [31].
2) Voltage Profile: Fig. 3 demonstrates the voltage magnitude at load buses in the IEEE 57-bus test system before and
after opening the mentioned transmission lines. The results
show that as a consequence of opening lines, most bus voltages
increase while a few decrease. However, the average of bus
voltages increases from 1.03 p.u. to 1.04 p.u. Also, in the
pre-switching system, the minimum voltage is 0.98 p.u. at Bus
31; after opening the transmission lines the minimum voltage
has been increased to 0.99 p.u. Note that by including AC
constraints, the minimum voltage criterion has been respected
and all the voltages are above 0.9 p.u.
3) LMP: Fig. 4 and Table III display the impact of opening
identified lines on LMP at system load buses. Note that, before switching, the LMP fluctuations across the system is significant; the maximum and minimum LMP are $209/MWh and
$10/MWh, respectively. On the other hand, the maximum and
minimum LMP for post-switching system have been changed
to $18.1/MWh and $12.9/MWh, respectively. Also, the average
LMP across the system has been decreased from $78.7/MWh to
$16.4/MWh. The maximum LMP deviation occurred at Bus 29
where the LMP has been decreased from $209/MWh to $16.5/
MWh. Since after TS, the LMP variations across the system
is not as high as pre-switching system, the congestion rent has
been decreased from $23 594 to $834.

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Fig. 4. LMP variations at some load buses; the IEEE 57-bus test system.

TABLE III
LMP VARIATIONS; THE IEEE 57-BUS TEST SYSTEM

C. Impact of Using Tighter Voltage Bands

As mentioned before, for the IEEE 57-bus test system, with
TS based on DCOPF, five lines were identified as the ones to
be outaged. Also, in TS with AC constraints with
as
allowed voltage band, only two switching actions were allowed.
Here, voltage band is restricted to
. As a result of
applying a tighter voltage band, only one switching action is
allowed (Line 115) in this case. Also, less economic units are
dispatched here to respect system voltage security, thus resulting
in higher total generation cost (cost decreases from $20 156.6/h
to $18 969.5/h, 5.9% reduction). Note that in this case, the cost is
higher for both pre- and post-switching systems and congestion
is partially relieved which was not the case for the TS based on
DCOPF. Therefore, by using tighter voltage bands in operation,
congestion may not be completely removed.

Fig. 5. Block diagram to find a priority list for opening candidate lines.

TABLE IV
GENERATION DISPATCH; THE IEEE 57-BUS TEST SYSTEM
WITH VOLTAGE BAND BEING

V. DETERMINING A PRIORITY LIST FOR LINES TO BE OPENED

By using the TS based on the proposed method, one can find
the candidate lines that have to be opened to relieve congestion.
The system operator would also require a priority list for these
lines since line switchings in a real power system have to be
performed one at a time and not simultaneously. In this section,
a method is proposed to find a priority list for opening identified
lines. Therefore, the master problem is formulated by limiting
the number of switching actions to one
. The block
diagram for this method is shown in Fig. 5. This procedure is
repeated until congestion is fully or partially removed while for
each switching actions,
and voltage security criteria are
respected as well. Using this method, the priority list for two
identified lines in the previous section is found as Line 115
(1st, i.e., to be opened) and Line 34 (2nd).
Table IV shows the impact of sequential TS on system variables such as generation dispatch and losses. Note that after
1st TS, the total generation cost has dropped significantly from
$19 021/h to $15 957.8/h (16.1% reduction) and does not change

much for the following TS action. Nevertheless, transmission

congestion in test system cannot totally relieved and transmission line between Bus 8 and Bus 9 is congested. Moreover, the
drop in average LMP is also significant for 1st TS action. In
other word, 1st TS has improved significantly both total generation cost and LMP variation. On the other hand, the 2nd TS
marginally decreases total generation cost while transmission
congestion is totally relieved from the system. If only one corrective switching can be performed and total generation cost is
important from the viewpoint of system operator, it may not be
required to perform the 2nd TS.

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549

TABLE V
SYSTEM DISPATCH RESULTS; THE IEEE 300-BUS TEST SYSTEM

VI. IEEE 300-BUS TEST SYSTEM

The IEEE 300-bus test system as a more realistic and larger
test system is used here. It consists of 69 generators, 411 transmission lines with total load of 23 525.8 MW and 7788 MVAr.
Data for this system are available in [32]. The initial ACOPF
results show that Lines 11628, 108109, and 28116 are congested. Based on the method presented in Section V, the proposed method is used here to identify which line or lines have
to be outaged to solve transmission congestion problem. As it
was discussed in previous section, the system operator needs a
priority list for performing TS. Therefore, the problem is forin each path of the algorithm in Fig. 5.
mulated with
The required switching actions are identified and reported in
Table V. The first switching action (Line 108109) would reduce the total cost by 1.95%. It is worth mentioning that Line
11628 is removed from the candidate lines since by opening
this line, reliability criterion (22) will be violated. Ignoring (22)
would result in selecting Line 11628 as the second switching
action and total generation cost would decrease to $337 855/h.
In the second run of the search trail in Fig. 5, Line 80104 is
identified as the second line to be opened which would reduce
the cost by 3.61% with respect to the base case. LMP variations over system buses has also been reduced after applying
the switching actions.
Eventually, in the third run of search trail, Line 177 is identified. Here, cost reduction is not significant and is mostly due
to small reduction in active losses. The fourth run of search trial
in Fig. 5 cannot identify another line to be outaged. Note that
the congestion is not completely relieved since opening a new
line would jeopardize system security and thus it is not allowed
by the program.
The case is tested on a 2.8-GHz, 16-Gb Ram personal computer. Note that the execution time highly depends on system
conditions and the initial values given for the optimization
problem. For instance, the initial conditions for s can be provided based on our operation experience and system conditions.
This can significantly affect the execution time. The execution
time for identifying the first TS action from ten candidate lines
and 340 contingencies is about 5 min. Contingencies leading to
splitting the system to two islands have been ignored. However,
without providing candidate lines, the CPU time would increase
significantly (about 150 min).
VII. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, transmission congestion management using
transmission switching (TS) considering
and voltage security criteria is presented and discussed. The TS is formulated

TABLE VI
SUPPLY BIDDING INFORMATION; THE IEEE 57-BUS TEST SYSTEM

as an MINLP problem and decomposed into smaller problems,

which are solved using Benders decomposition, determining
the most effective lines to be opened in order to relieve congestion. Any switching action which would violate voltage
security and/or
security criteria is deleted from the list
of candidate lines for TS. In some cases, maybe more than
one TS action is required for transmission congestion relief.
Therefore, a methodology is also proposed to find a priority list
providing a guideline for operators in taking switching actions.
The results of TS with AC constraints is also compared to those
of TS based on DCOPF showing that DCOPF is inadequate
and may give results that can jeopardize system security or in
some cases may lead to voltage collapse. The effect of voltage
bands on TS with AC constraints is also discussed; with tighter
voltage bands, the number of TS actions that respect voltage security would decrease and consequently TS cannot completely
remove congestion.
The main contributions of this paper are summarized as
follows:
Transmission switching with AC constraints (including
voltage and
security criteria) is formulated and
used to reduce extra generation costs imposed due to
transmission congestion.
Benders decomposition is employed to effectively solve
the resulted MINLP problem.
A methodology is introduced providing the system operator with a priority list for performing switching actions.
APPENDIX
Table VI provides the supply bidding information for the
IEEE 57-bus test system.
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Mojtaba Khanabadi received the B.Sc. degree from

the University of Qazvin, Qazvin, Iran, and the M.Sc.
degree from the University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran, in
2009 and 2012, respectively.
He has the experience of working at Besat substation and the Caspian company. His interests include
power system operation and optimization, electricity
markets, and smart grids.

Hassan Ghasemi (S01M07SM11) received

the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from the University of
Tehran, Tehran, Iran, in 1999 and 2001, respectively,
and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from
the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada,
in 2006.
He worked for the market and system operation
division at the independent electricity system operator (IESO), Ontario, Canada, from 20062009. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor in the School of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of
Tehran. His main research interests are power system operation and control, energy systems, electricity markets and system identification applications in power
systems.

Meysam Doostizadeh received the B.Sc degree in

electrical engineering from the University of Shahid
Chamran, Ahwaz, Iran, in 2009. He is currently pursuing the M.Sc degree at the University of Tehran,
Tehran, Iran.
His research interests are power system optimization, demand response programs, and integration of
distributed energy resources to smart power systems.