A successive linear programming approach to solving the iv-acopf

Improved formulations of and solution techniques for the alternating current optimal power flow (ACOPF) problem are critical to improving current market practices in economic dispatch. We introduce the IV-ACOPF formulation that unlike canonical ACOPF formulations-which represent network balancing through nonlinear coupling-is based on a current injections approach that linearly couple the quadratic constraints at each bus; yet, the IV-ACOPF is mathematically equivalent to the canonical ACOPF formulation. We propose a successive linear programming (SLP) approach to solve the IV-ACOPF, which we refer to as the SLP IV-ACOPF algorithm. The SLP IV-ACOPF leverages commercial LP solvers and can be readily extended and integrated into more complex decision processes, e.g., unit commitment and transmission switching. We demonstrate with the standard MATPOWER test suite an acceptable quality of convergence to a best-known solution and linear scaling of computational time in proportion to network size.