Incorporating Optimal Transmission Switching in Unit Commitment with a Probabilistic Spinning Reserve Criterion

The optimal transmission switching (OTS) looks to find the optimal network topology. This new control functionality enhances the power system flexibility to adapt to the future changing conditions. This paper incorporates the OTS in the unit commitment problem with a probabilistic reserve criterion, here the spinning reserve (SR) is determined by minimizing the total cost where the cost related to the expected load not served (ELNS) is penalized in the objective function. To reduce the computational complexity, a transmission line categorization scheme is introduced for screening a small set of switchable lines, and the maximum number of switchable lines is determined by a heuristic procedure. By doing so, the computation efficiency can be greatly improved. The case studies illustrate the validity and effectiveness of the proposed method.