Sustainable Energy and Artificial Intelligence

Smart Reliability and Economic Unit Commitment Through Transmission Switching and AC Power Flow Considerations

Articles in Press

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Vahid Davatgaran 1
Mahyar Abasi 2

1 Department of Electrical Engineering, Technical and Vocational University (TVU), Tehran, Iran.

2 Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Arak University, Arak 38156-8-8349, Iran.

Abstract
In restructured power systems, market participants aim to maximize their profits, creating significant pressure on the Independent System Operator (ISO) to minimize overall generation costs while maintaining system security. Transmission congestion often reduces market efficiency and increases operational expenses. Transmission switching (TS), involving network topology modifications, has proven to be an effective congestion management tool within day-ahead market scheduling, potentially reducing generation costs by 5-10%. However, implementation of TS may risk violating system reliability constraints. This paper proposes a probabilistic reliability-constrained unit commitment (RCUC) model that integrates transmission switching with detailed AC power flow constraints, voltage limits, transmission line thermal limits, and line losses. The model enforces spinning reserve requirements probabilistically to ensure operational reliability. Case studies on a standard test system demonstrate that the proposed method can reduce total generation cost by approximately 7.8%, improve voltage profile compliance, and maintain the defined level of reliability, confirming both economic and operational benefits of topology modification in RCUC.

Keywords

Reliability-constrained unit commitment
Transmission switching
Probabilistic spinning reserve
AC Power flow
Voltage constraints
Congestion management
Subjects
Sustainable Energy and Artificial Intelligence

Articles in Press, Corrected Proof
Available Online from 29 October 2026

  • Receive Date 22 July 2026
  • Revise Date 11 October 2026
  • Accept Date 28 October 2026
  • First Publish Date 29 October 2026

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