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fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TPWRD.2018.2868158,
IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery

Fast Distributed Reactive Power Control for Voltage

Regulation in Distribution Networks
Zhiyuan Tang, Student Member, IEEE, David J. Hill, Life Fellow, IEEE, and Tao Liu, Member, IEEE

Abstract—This letter considers the problem of voltage regula-

tion of distribution networks by optimally setting the reactive
power of distributed energy resources (DERs). Based on the
linearized DistFlow model, the problem is first formulated as a
convex quadratic optimization problem with linear constraints.
Then, a distributed accelerated dual descent algorithm (DADD)
is proposed to solve the optimization problem by employing the
dual decomposition and accelerated gradient projected
techniques.
Index Terms—Voltage regulation, distributed optimization,
reactive power, distribution network
I. INTRODUCTION
that is usually located at the distribution substation. For each
bus i, i = 1, . . . , N , we assume that there is one DER with
electronic interface that can regulate its active and reactive
power outputs respectively. Based on the DistFlow equations
proposed in [3] and by assuming that 1) the loss is negligible
compared to line flow and 2) the voltage profile is relatively
flat, i.e., vi2 −v2 j 2(v
≈ i vj), −(i, j) , the ∈linearized
E DistFlow
equations can be established and expressed in a vector form as
follows [4]:
v = Rp + Xq + v01N (1)
where vectors v = [v1, . . . , vN ] , p = [p1, . . . , pN ]T ,
T

Due to the high R/X ratio of distribution networks, the and q = [q1, . . . , qN ]T are the bus voltages, active power
increasing deployment of DERs, e.g. photovoltaic, may cause injections, and reactive power injections vector,
fast voltage fluctuations that are hard to handle by capacitors respectively; vector 1N is the · all-ones vector. The
and traditional voltage regulators. Thanks to advances of superscript ( )T denotes the transpose of a vector or a
power electronics, DERs on the other hand can also provide matrix. The matrices R = F diag(r)F ∈ T
and X∈ = F
fast and flexible reactive power support for voltage regulation diag(x)F ∈ with r = ∈
T
[rij ] R , (i,
N
E j) and
[1]. This letter proposes a strategy to regulate voltages of dis- x = [xij ] E RN , (i, j) are the resistance and reactance of
tribution networks by optimally dispatching the reactive line segments, respectively. Here, diag(x)− denotes a
power of the DERs. In order to implement an active diagonal matrix having x on its diagonal. The matrix F =
management of distribution networks, distributed voltage A−1 where A is the reduced branch-bus incidence matrix
control strategies have gained a lot of attention (see [1], [2] [4]. Note that, R and X are symmetric and strictly
and references therein). Compared with the exiting works on positive-definite [4]. It is worth mentioning that the
distributed voltage regulation, the proposed DADD algorithm accuracy of the linearized DistFlow model (1) has been
has two main advantages. First, it appears that all the corroborated by several recent works (see [1], [4] for
alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) based examples). It is also verified by the case study that
strategies require all the variables (e.g. active and reactive line follows where the full ac power flow model is used for
power flows, voltages) to be stored and exchanged among lossy distribution networks.
neighbors, see e.g. [1], whereas our strategy incorporates only
the active power injection measurements. Second, the P ROBLEM FORMULATION
III.
iteration number The voltage regulation
1 problem can be formulated as:
of the proposed algorithm to reach the optimal solution is min
2 ||v − µ|| (2)

much smaller than the two popular algorithms extensively 2 2

used in distributed voltage control strategies, i.e., the ADMM s.t. (1) and qj ≤ qj ≤ q j , j = 1, . . . , N (3)
algorithm used in [1] and dual-ascent algorithm employed in
where µ = [µ1, . . . , µN ] is the desired voltage profile. The
T

[2]. Thus, the proposed control strategy can deal with fast symbol || · ||2 denotes the l2 norm. Constants and q j are
system dynamics with less sensing requirements. qj th

the lower and upper reactive power limits of the j DER,

II. NETWORK DESCRIPTION Scheme through Project No. T23-701/14-N.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineer- ing, The
Consider a connected radial distribution network with N +1 University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (email: zytan@eee.hku.hk;
buses. Let N := 0, { 1, . . . , N } be the bus set and E := dhill@eee.hku.hk; taoliu@eee.hku.hk).
(i,
{ j) } ⊆ N × be the N line segment set. Without loss of
N
generality, set bus 0 to be the point of common coupling
(PCC)
This work was fully supported by the Research Grants Council of the
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region under the Theme-based Research
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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TPWRD.2018.2868158,
IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery

2
respectively, which could be due to the inverters’ Under the condition that the substation voltage v0 is fixed
apparent power limit and real power generation [1] to be unity, setting µ = 1N and substituting (1) into (2), the
or depend on the inverter power factor ratings of problem (2)-(3) can be converted into the following quadratic
DERs. The objective is to minimize the total problem:
voltage mismatch under the local control limit. 1
min ||Rp + Xq||22 s.t. M q ≤ b (4)
2
T T
where M = [I T , −I T ]T and b = [q T , −q ] .
N N and λ i, respectively. The difficulty is to update λi and λi
Here,
IN is the identity matrix, q = [q1, . . . , qN ]T , and q = in a distributed manner. Observe that the matrix B has the
[ , . . . , ]T . same sparsity as that of the nodal admittance matrix, i.e.,
q 1q N
the matrix B has entries different from zero only in the
IV. D ISTRIBUTED A LGORITHM diagonal position and position i, j with (i, j) ∈ E .
Therefore, the
In order to solve the optimization problem (4) in a dis- matrix B2 in (9a) and (9b) has nonzero entries matching
tributed way, we assume that the distribution network lines the 2-hop neighborhoods of each bus, i.e., based on the local
have the same R/X ratio, i.e., there exists a constant k such active power injection measurement pi, bus i can update λi
thatxrijij = k for all (i, j) ∈ E . This assumption is satisfied and λi by communicating with its neighbors and neighbors of
these neighbors, which leads to a distributed implementation
when the network is homogeneous, which is true in most cases
of the algorithm (9). When applying the DADD algorithm
in practice [2].
(9) in practice, bus i can get the information of its 2-hop
The Lagrangian of problem (4) is
neighbors through its nearest neighbors instead of directly
1 communicating with its 2-hop neighbors, which can reduce
(Rp + Xq) + (M q − b) (5)
λT the complexity of the communication network required.
T
L(q, λ) = (Rp + Xq)
2 T
where λ = [λ , λT ]∈ T
R2N are the Lagrangian C ASE STUDY
V.
mul- tipliers with λ = [λ1 , . . . , λN ]T and λ = [λ 1 , . .
. , λ N ]T . The primal optimizers of the Lagrangian (5) During the simulation, the full ac power flow model,
instead of the linearized DistFlow model (1), is used to model
are defined as q(λ) = arg minq∂ L(q, λ). From ∂L = 0, we
the distribution networks.
have q

q(λ) = −B2M T λ − kp (6) A. 8-bus test feeder

A 4.8-kV distribution network is considered withN :=
where B = X−1 = AT diag(x)−1A. 0,
{ 1, . . . , }7 , whose diagram is shown in Fig. 1. Each line
Computing the Lagrange dual of (4) yields maximization segment has the same impedance 0.9216+j4608Ω with k =
of a concave function
G (λ), where
G (λ)−=2 1 T
λ M − 2, which is the typical value for 4.8 kV power lines [2]. Each
B M λ kλ
2 T T
− Mp T
λ b that is bus has a DER whose reactive power limit is [−100, 100]
obtained by substituting q(λ) in (6) into (5). Casting the kvar. The net active power injections for bus 1 to 7 are −100,
Lagrangian dual as minimization gives −70,
min −G(λ) s.t. λ ≥ 0. (7) −50, −50, 300, 80, and −100 kW, respectively.
λ

Now, we will consider the solutions of the dual problem (7)

and calculate the associated primal optimal variables by (6).
To improve the transient performance of the strategy, the
accelerated projected gradient algorithm proposed in [5] is
used to solve the optimization problem (7):
Figure 1. The graph of the 8-bus distribution system
λ(τ + 1) = P+[γ(τ ) − α(M B 2M T γ + kM p + b)]
(8a) Fig. 2 plots the voltage mismatch error || −v ||1 2 for the
γ(τ +1) = λ(τ +1)+β(τ +1)(λ(τ +1) − λ(τ )), τ = 0, 1, . . . proposed DADD algorithm, ADMM algorithm in [1], and
(8b) primal-ascent algorithm in [2]. It can be seen from Fig. 2
( )√
where β(τ + 1) = 4θ(τ )(12− θ(τ ))/ θ(τ )2 + θ(τ + 1) with
θ(τ ) +4θ(τ ) −θ(τ 2)

θ(τ + 1) = 2 . The algorithm (8) is initial- that the iteration number needed for the proposed algorithm
ized by λ(0) = γ(0) and θ(0) = 1. Here, γ = [γT , γT ]T ∈ (about 100) to converge to the optimum is much less than
R2N with γ = [γ 1 , . . . , γ N ]T and γ = , . . . , ]T ; θ and that of the ADMM (around 800) and dual-ascent algorithm
[γ 1
γ
N
β are the two auxiliary variables; the nonlinear operatorP + [· ] positive constant. Splitting vectors λ and γ, the process (8) can be
is the projection on[ the positive( orthant; and α is a)]suitable rewritten as:
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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TPWRD.2018.2868158,
IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery

3
(around 1400). Note that the initial points for the above three
λ(τ + 1) = P+ γ(τ ) − α B2(γ − γ ) + kp + q (9a)
algorithms are the same, and the parameters of the three
[ ( 2 )]
λ(τ + 1) = P+ γ(τ ) − α B (γ − γ) − kp − q (9b) algorithms have been selected, via empirical experimentation,
( ) to give the best convergence properties, respectively.
γ(τ + 1) = λ(τ + 1) + β(τ + 1) λ(τ + 1) − λ(τ ) (9c) Fig. 3 compares the voltage profile at bus 5 for the
proposed DADD algorithm, ADMM algorithm in [1], and
γ (τ + 1) = λ(τ + 1) + β(τ + 1) (λ (τ + 1) − λ(τ )) .
primal-ascent algorithm in [2] under a fast active power
(9d)
fluctuation at bus 5. We assume that the time periods needed
To implement algorithm (9) in a distributed manner, we for the above three algorithms to complete one step of
assign four variables λi, λi, γ i , and γ i for each bus iteration are the same, i.e., 10 ms. It can be seen from Fig. 3
that the voltage profile obtained by the proposed DADD
i, algorithm is more flat than that of ADMM and dual-ascent
i = 1, . . . , N . It can be seen from (9c) and (9d) that
γi algorithms. This is due to the fact that the proposed DADD
and γi can be updated locally by each bus i based on algorithm can cope with the most up-to-date system operating
λi conditions due to its fast convergence speed.
1.03
ADMM
1.02
DADD
0.25 dual−ascent 1.01
Voltage mismatch (kV)

1
0.2 0.99

Voltage (p.u.)
0.98
0.15 0.97
0.96
0.1 0.95
0.94
0.05 0.93
0.92
0 0.91
0 500 1000 1500 2000 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112131415161718192021222324
Number of iteration Time (hour)

Figure 2. Voltage mismatch error ||v − 1||2 versus iteration number. Figure 5. Daily bus voltage profile without control.

(a) The net active power injection evoluation at bus 5

300 1.03
Power (kW)

200 1.02
1.01
100
1
50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 0.99
Voltage (p.u.)

Time (s) 0.98

(b) The voltage profile at bus 5
0.97
1.04
ADMM DADD dual−ascent
Voltage (p.u.)

0.96
1.02 0.95
1 0.94
0.93
0.98 0.92
50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Time (s) 0.91
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112131415161718192021222324
Time (hour)
Figure 3. The voltage profile at bus 5 under a fast active power fluctuation. power generation.

6
Load
Solar generation
B. 34-bus test feeder 5

The IEEE 34-bus test feeder [6] is considered with N := 4

Power (kW)

0,
{ 1, . . . , 33} . In order to test the robustness of the proposed
DADD algorithm, the resistance of lines are randomly 3

selected such that the R/X ratio ranges from 1 to 2 (in the 2

original test feeder, the R/X ratio ranges from 1.002 to

1.885), whereas the R/X ratio k employed in the proposed 1

DADD algorithm is selected as 1.5. We assume that there is a 0

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
PV inverter at each bus with the capacity of 4 kVA. To Time (hour)

simulate the dynamic scenario, we use real data of a particular

Figure 4. Daily residential active load and solar PV generation profiles.
day for residential load and solar generation profiles, both at
5-minute resolutions, which are shown in Fig. 4. We further
assume that each bus has the same loading and solar
generation profiles. During the simulation, at each time slot,
the reactive power change limits
j
∈ q and q j for bus j, j
N are updated based on
the given inverter rating (i.e., 4 kVA) and concurrent solar
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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TPWRD.2018.2868158,
IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery

Figure 6. Daily bus voltage profile under control.

Fig. 5 and Fig. 6 show the daily voltage profile

without and with the proposed voltage control
strategy, respectively. Through comparison, it can
be found that a relatively flat voltage profile is
obtained with the proposed voltage control
scheme, which demonstrates the effectiveness of ±
the proposed voltage control strategy. Since there
are 33.3% variations in the R/X ratios of the
distribution lines in the test system, the robustness
of the proposed voltage control scheme is also
verified.

C ONCLUSION
VI.
The proposed fast distributed reactive power
control strategy provides an efficient, effective,
and fast way to handle the voltage regulation
problem of distribution networks. Future work
will explore how to relax the uniform R/X
assumption.

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