Fault tolerance enhancement in distribution power grids: a voltage set-point reconfiguration approach

In this paper we present a supervisory strategy for voltage regulation control problems in electrical power grids based on the Command Governor (CG) approach. The scheme consists of reconfiguring the nominal voltage set-point of the network in the presence of Distributed Generation (DG) units to avoid operative constraint violations in response to unexpected load changes and/or failures. Such a reconfiguration capability allows one to enhance the fault tolerability and to prevent undesirable phenomena from occurring in the electrical power grid. We focus on an electrical Medium Voltage (MV) distribution network subject to coordination constraints on maximum load voltages deviations and possible failures on the onload tap changers (OLTC). Simulation results show that the CG unit ensures feasible evolutions of the overall network by reconfiguring the nominal voltage set-point, whenever critical events occur.