Random Network Topology Generator for Advanced Testing of Smart Grid Applications

During the last decade, the rapid development of renewable sources, electricity storage technologies and electric vehicles has significantly changed the typical modus operandi of transmission and distribution networks. In conjunction with the development of information and communication technologies, the operation of the electricity system is increasingly dependent on sophisticated optimization and control algorithms, which in turn stimulates further development in the area of power system control. However, these newly developed methods and algorithms must be rigorously tested, verifying the performance and ability to perform all the intendent tasks in a very challenging environment. Especially distribution networks are very complicated heterogenous systems with variable structure and volatile operating conditions. Therefore, the control and optimization algorithms under development should be tested on a large set of test networks with different size, topology, and operation characteristics. There are already some definitions of test networks intended for this purpose, however the number of different configurations and topologies available is very limited. This paper introduces a method for generating random network topologies with predefined properties, allowing automatic testing of various network optimization and control algorithms. Random network generator allows to automatically generate large number of different test cases with different properties to benchmark the performance and identify limitations of the newly developed algorithms and methods. The proposed method proved to be able to effectively generate test networks with different structure and properties and can be used to generate test networks topologies representing both the transmission and sub-transmission networks, and the high voltage distribution networks.