2017 2nd International Conference on Power and Renewable Energy
Research on Optimal Load Shedding for Active Distribution Network Based on
Genetic Algorithm
Yang Fan, Xin Zi, Liu Jun, Lu Bingbing
Electric Power Research Institute
Shanghai Municipal Electrical Power Company
Shanghai, China
e-mail: 391818095@qq.com
Abstract—This paper presents a mathematical model for active
distribution network load shedding considering the number of
blackouts and power shortage based on detailed classification
of load after power failure. By establishing the output model of
fan energy storage and adopting gray model to forecast wind
speed and load, the genetic algorithm is used to solve optimal
load shedding scheme considering the influence of distributed
energy. The simulation results show that the gray model has
better accuracy and the load calculation algorithm is more
efficient, which satisfies real-time engineering requirements.
Load shedding scheme become more reasonable by taking
indicators like load priority, power shortage and outage
frequency into account, and the weight coefficient in load
shedding objective function can be adjusted to satisfy actual
needs.
Keywords-active distribution network; gray model; genetic
algorithm; load shedding; distributed energy
I. INTRODUCTION
Active Distribution Network (ADN) provides an
excellent and flexible access platform for Distributed
Energy Resource (DER), which enables real-time
monitoring and control of distribution network to realize
economical, efficient and reliable operation. DER includes
Distributed Generation (DG), Electrical Energy Storage
(EES), Controllable Load (CL) [1] and etc., By controlling
DER, breakers, transformers and other equipments after
network components failure, DMS (Distribution
Management System) helps distribution network to run
reasonably and economically in the duration of failure.
Active distribution network aims to make full use of
existing resources to achieve a more reasonable operation
statues before the restoration of faulty equipments.
At present, certain studies on active load shedding has
been carried out [2]. However, there are few studies
considering the classification of fault loads, which leads to
incomplete factors of load shedding objective function.
Only power shortage is considered, regardless of outage
frequency indicators. The implementation of Distribution
Automation (DA) has greatly reduced troubleshooting time
and fault area, which greatly helps to restore distribution
network within a very short period of time usually 1-2h [3].
Meanwhile, Distribution Management System (DMS)
continuously records distribution network operational
978-1-5386-2156-1/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE 510
information and stores in database. As the communication
may be wireless with interference, data packet loss will
happen during the process of information gathering. So the
data may not be complete before failure takes place and its
impacts need to be considered [4]. In terms of algorithms,
Genetic Algorithm (GA), as one of the most practical
modern intelligent algorithms, is well applied in solving
complex problems with large constraints and scales [5].
This paper presents a mathematical model of active
distribution network load shedding considering number of
blackouts and power shortage based on the detailed
classification of the load after power failure. It adopts gray
model to forecast wind speed and load to determine whether
the remaining power supply during fault satisfies the
demand. On the other hand, genetic algorithm will be used
to solve the optimal load shedding scheme if the remaining
power supply is not satisfied. The results show that the
proposed method has high efficiency, strong convergence
and good searching ability, which satisfies real-time
requirements.
II. MATHEMATICAL MODELS
A. Load Classification
When the active distribution network failure occurs, the
distribution automation system will immediately locate and
isolate the fault, transferring fault affected load to non-fault
areas. When the remaining power supply cannot meet load
demands, the appropriate shedding scheme will be carried
out under operating constraints, achieving safe transition to
normal state. The fault load can be divided into two
categories based on the analysis above: instantaneous fault
load and short-term fault load.
The instantaneous power failure mainly refers to the
power failure due to protection action, and power supply is
restored through load transfer in several minutes. Its failure
duration depends on fault location and switch operating
indicator. This type of load mainly affects the frequency
indicator, when calculating system reliability, which has
little influence on fault duration indicator and power
shortage indicator.
Short-term power outage mainly refers to the protection
and it cannot be restored by load transferring. Or the
remaining power supply cannot meet all load demand after
failure, due to power outage protection operating priority,
part of the rest normal power supply load has to be removed. SOCmin d SOCi ,t d SOCmax (5)
Power failure duration for this type of load mainly depends
on fault handling time, such as bus fault repair time for 2 EES
 Pi ,max d Pi ,EES EES
d Pi ,max (6)
t
hours, causing serious impacts on all three kinds of
reliability indicators mentioned above. In the formula above, nF , nEES , nDG , nload are for
B. The Mathematical Model for Load Shedding number of valid feeders, batteries, distributed generators and
actual power supply load within the area respectively.
1) Objective Function
Two types of load faults mentioned above are required Pi ,Ft , Pi ,EES
t , Pi ,DG
t , Pi ,t for power, storage power, DG
to take into account and the load shedding objective function power and load size of i th feeder line at t moment
is established as follows: respectively.
F
N candidate Duration Pi ,t Pi ,max for the maximum power allowed of i th feeder
min F ( x) ¦ [D1 ˜ ( ¦ xi wi
Psum
)
line. SOCmin and SOCmax for battery charge state upper and
i 1 t 1
(1)
Ci lower limits respectively.
 D 2 ˜ f ( xi , yi ) ] EES
Pi ,max for maximum charge and discharge power of i th
Csum
battery.
In the formula above, Ncandidate is the number of loads
C. Gray Model
that can be reconstructed and stabilized by the grid, as the
candidate set of load shedding. As 1 for xi means that the Gray model (GM) is an effective prediction method to
solve problem with little sample by using a small and
load point i is shed, and 0 for xi means that the load point incomplete amount of information to establish mathematical
i is not shed with normal power supply or power model and making a prediction. In this paper, we use the
restoration. one-step univariate GM (1,1) model, which can predict the
Duration for troubleshooting time. wi for the priority of short-term wind speed and load data according to the
load i , in this paper, the priority range is from 1 to 3. Pi ,t for information before the fault. The modeling steps are as
follows:
fault load value of point i at the time of t . Psum for the
sum of respective load value in failure duration. 1) Setting original data sequence as {x((0)
i ) }(i 1, 2Ăn ,
D1 and D 2 for the weight coefficient of power shortage as n for the number of raw data.
and number of blackouts respectively. D1  D 2 1 , power
2) A new sequence {x((1)
i ) }(i 1, 2Ăn is generated by
shortage and number of blackouts are standardized In the
i
formula above. Ci for the customers number of load point i . accumulating the original data, as x((1)
i) ¦ x((0)l ) . The
Csum for the sum of customers number of respective load l 1

points. yi represents whether load point i is shed or not dx (1)

differential equation of GM (1,1) model is  ax (1) u
due to protection operating. 1 for outrage and 0 for no dt
outrage. §a·
f ( x, y) for the or logical function of x and y , it is and V ¨ ¸ for its gray parameter.
defined as follow: ©u ¹
3) Constructing cumulative matrix and constant term
­1 x 1 or y 1 vector as:
f ( x, y) ® (2)
¯0 otherwise § 1 (1) ·
(1)
2) Constraints ¨  2 ( x(2)  x(1) ) 1¸
¨ ¸
The distribution network is divided into one or several ¨  1 ( x (1)  x (1) ) ¸
power supply areas through grid reconstruction and load B ¨ 2 (3) (2) 1¸
¨ ¸
shedding after failure. ¨ ¸
The power balance, battery charge and discharge ¨ 1 (1) ¸
(1) 1
constraints for each area need to be met, which are ¨  ( x( n )  x( n 1) ) ¸
expressed as follows: © 2 ¹
nF nEES nDG nload (0) (0)
Y ( x(2) , x(3) , ˜˜˜, x((0)
n) )
T
¦ Pi,Ft  ¦ Pi,EES
t  ¦ Pi ,DG
t t ¦ Pi ,t (3)
i 1 i 1 i 1 i 1
š
Pi ,Ft d Pi ,max
F
(4) 4) Solving gray parameters V by least square method
and its formula is shown as follow:

511
 š §š· ­( A  Bv  Cv 2 ) PN , vin  v d vr
V ¨a¸ ( BT B)1 BT Y °
¨u ¸ PWTs ® PN vr  v d vout (7)
© ¹ °0
¯ others
5) Replace the gray parameter with time function
In the formula above, A , B and C can be obtained by
(1) u u fitting historical data of wind speed and wind turbine group
x( k 1) (1)
( x(1)  )e ak  output. PWTs for actual power output of wind turbine group.
a a
vin , vr , vout and v for cut-in wind speed, rated wind speed,
When k 1, 2,}ˈn -1 , the fitting value is acquired cut-out wind speed and actual wind speed respectively. PN
(1)
from the formula above. When k t n , x ( k 1) is predictive for rated power of wind turbine group.
Energy storage system is able to calm wind turbine
value.
power fluctuations, together with the combination of
6) Commencing cumulative reduction process on distributed power generations, it can be used as a stable
(1)
x ( k 1) to get: power supplier as common battery currently. State of charge
(SOC) is a vital state variables for battery, which reflects the
proportion of remaining capacity of battery regarding total
x((0)
k 1) (ax(1)
(0)
 u)e ak capacity. When the value is greater than the upper limit, the
battery will stop charging. And when the value is less than
7) Calculating the difference H ((0) (0)
k ) between x( k ) and the lower limit, it will stop discharging. The mathematical
(0) model is shown below:
x ( k ) , together with relative error e(k ) .
P EES
(0) SOCt 1 SOCt  t EES (8)
H ((0)
k) k )  x( k )
x((0) E
e(k ) H ((0) (0)
k ) x( k ) In the formula above, SOCt for the charge state of
8) Diagnosing and forecasting application model. In battery in t duration. Pt EES for charge and discharge power
order to analyze the reliability and effectiveness of the of battery in t duration, as positive for discharging and
model, it must be diagnosed, as calculating the observed negative for charging. E EES (kWh) for rated capacity for
data variance and its residual variance: battery.
1 n (0)
¦[ x(k )  x]2
s12
nk 1 III. MATHEMATICAL MODEL FOR LOAD SHEDDING BASED
1 n ON GENETIC ALGORITHM
s22 ¦[H (k )  H ]2
nk 1 A. Genetic Algorithm
1 n (0) 1 n
In the formula above, x ¦
nk 1
x( k ) , H ¦ H (k ) . After
nk 1
Genetic Algorithm (GA) is designed to search the
optimal solution by simulating natural evolutionary process,
that, calculating and verifying C and small error probability which has better computational efficiency in solving 0-1
P as: constraint programming problem than other algorithms.
C s2 s1 The chromosome length is equal to the number of load
in shedding candidate set Ncandidate . By using binary
P P{ H (k )  H  0.6745s1} encoding, the ith load is shed if its value is 1 and the ith load
Commencing model diagnosing according to the is not shed if its value is 0.
calculated and verified C with Table I. The number of bits of crossover and mutation varies
with Ncandidate at equal ratio. The genetic algorithm fitness
TABLE I. GRAY MODEL ACCURACY LEVEL function is defined as (9) and the remaining parameters are
Accuracy Level shown in Table II.
Classification 1
Excellent Regular Inadequate Unqualified Fitness( x) (9)
P >0.95 >0.8 >0.7 ≤0.7 Funload ( x)  M ˜ a
C <0.35 <0.5 <0.65 ≥0.65 In the formula above, M for larger positive numbers,
M ˜ a for limited constraint penalties, when the
D. Wind Turbine and Energy Storage Model corresponding load shedding scheme of the chromosome
The output of fan group is related to wind speed, which satisfies the constraint condition (3) - (6), a 0 , otherwise
is shown as below: a 1.

512
 TABLE II. GENETIC ALGORITHM PARAMETERS model with the load and wind speed data before failure as
Parameter Value mentioned in Chapter II.C.
Choosing Roulette
3) Determining whether the remaining power supply
meets all the load demands in shedding candidates. If it is
Crossover rate Adaptive
satisfied, shedding will not be necessary and all loads in
Mutation rate Adaptive shedding candidates will be restored. Otherwise, it is not
Elite choice Yes necessary to cut the load and restore of the load set.
Population size 20 Otherwise, go to step 4.
Maximum number of iterations 40 4) Genetic algorithm initialization. Initializing the
population by setting N=1.
B. Algorithm Flow 5) Calculating the fitness value according to equation (9)
When a component failure occurs in active distribution for each individual in the population and sorting the fitness
network after, in terms of heavy load, GA-based load value from large to small, then start choosing, crossing and
shedding algorithm will be proposed as follows: mutating.
1) Recognizing the type of fault and estimating its 6) Determining whether the genetic algorithm
processing time. The algorithm will determine the convergent or not. If it is convergent, then continue to step
irreducible load set and load shedding candidate set by 7), otherwise, report to step 5).
locating and isolating the fault immediately. 7) Decoding chromosomes into specific load shedding
2) Calculating predicted wind speed, fan output and schemes by choosing optimal individual. Shedding the
load value during fault processing time based on the gray corresponding load and restoring the other load in shedding
candidates.
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10 9 8 0.5km 11 12 13 14 15 16
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Normally Normally
Cable Bus
closed breaker opened breaker

Figure 1. Test sample

IV. SIMULATION ANALYSIS TABLE III. LOAD PARAMETERS

A. Basic Data Load Node Peak Load

Users Priority
Number Number (MW)
This paper develops substation (Type-K, as bus
extension for upper level substation with protection devices 1 5 0.7 50 1
on each in/out line) wiring simulation by adopting Matlab 2 6 0.8 60 1
R2012aˈIntel Core i7 as programming platform, which is 3 7 1 70 1
shown as Fig. 1. 4 8 0.9 40 1
The maximum allowable power of main feeder line is
7MW. The rated power of fan group is 2MW with 1.6MWh 5 9 1 60 1
storage capacity and its cut into cut out and rated wind 6 10 0.8 40 1
speed are 9, 80 and 38km/h respectively. 7 11 1 70 3
Assuming the energy storage equipment has been fully
8 12 1 40 3
filled when failure occurs, and SOCmin and SOCmax for 0.2
9 13 1 60 3
and 1 respectively, the maximum battery charge and
discharge power will be 0.32MW. 10 14 0.8 50 1
The type of all loads is residential with 11MW peak and 11 15 1.1 40 1
the parameters are shown as Table 3. The daily load curve 12 16 0.9 50 1
is shown as Fig. 2. D1 0.5 and D 2 0.5 D 2 0.5 are set
in load shedding function.

513
 Figure 3. Gray Model Prediction

Figrue 2. Residential daily load curve

B. Simulation Results
For example, a failure occurs on node 4 at 13:00 causing
power cut on load node 2, 9, 12 and feeder F2 with bus
repair time of 2 hours. At this point, all the load belongs to
shedding candidate set and the total number is 12. The gray
model is used to predict wind speed and load data for the
next 2 hours, as shown in Table 4 and Fig. 3.
Figure 4. Algorithm convergence character
TABLE IV. GM(1,1) MODEL PREDICTION ERROR ANALYSIS

Acutal Wind GM(1,1) Relative V. CONCLUSION

Time Residual
Speed Prediction Value Error This paper presents an improved load shedding
6 4.30 4.30 0.00 0.00 algorithm for active distribution network. The algorithm
7 4.50 4.54 -0.04 0.98 adopts gray model to forecast wind speed and load by
taking advantages of its effectiveness for solving problem
8 4.91 4.74 0.17 3.36
with little sample by using a small and incomplete amount
9 4.98 4.95 0.03 0.51 of information comparing traditional direct curve fitting
10 5.09 5.17 -0.08 1.64 methods. Therefore, GA based load shedding algorithm is
proposed. The simulation results show that the gray model
11 5.25 5.40 -0.15 2.90
has better accuracy and the load calculation algorithm is
12 5.61 5.64 -0.03 0.55 more efficient, which satisfies real-time engineering
13 6.02 5.89 0.13 2.15 requirements. Load shedding scheme become more
reasonable by taking indicators like load priority, power
shortage and outage frequency into account, and the weight
The variance and residual variance of the original data coefficient in load shedding objective function can be
are shown as follow respectively: adjusted to satisfy actual needs.
s12 0.3110 ; s22 0.0111
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