A distributed algorithm for fast optimal power flow regulation in Smart Grids

This paper deals with the solution of the optimal power flow (OPF) problem under voltage regulation by means of a distributed algorithm. Taking inspiration from the recent literature on distributed-OPF, the approach is developed via the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM), and provides a fully decentralized, scalable, very fast, and robust method, whose performance is shown in meaningful scenarios. Unlike most of the literature, no semi-definite programming (SDP) relaxations of the OPF problem is used, but local sub- problems are addressed via efficient interior point methods (IPMs) to guarantee limited local processing efforts.