Integrated Transmission-Distribution Multi-Period Switching for Wildfire Risk Mitigation: Improving Speed and Scalability with Distributed Optimization: Preprint

Conference · Wed Jan 14 00:00:00 EST 2026

OSTI ID:3015011

Harries, Rachel ^[1]; Chang, Chin-Yao ^[2]; Molzahn, Daniel ^[1]

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1. Georgia Institute of Technology
2. National Laboratory of the Rockies, Golden, CO (United States)

With increasingly severe wildfire conditions driven by climate change, utilities must manage the risk of wildfire ignitions from electric power lines. During "public safety power shutoff'" events, utilities de-energize power lines to reduce wildfire ignition risk, which may result in load shedding. Distributed energy resources provide flexibility that can help support the system to reduce load shedding when lines are de-energized. We investigate a coordinated transmission-distribution optimization problem that balances wildfire risk mitigation and load shedding. We model distribution systems that include battery energy storage systems which may support loads when transmission lines are de-energized. This multi-period integrated transmission-distribution optimal switching problem jointly optimizes line switching decisions, the generators' setpoints, load shedding, and the batteries' states of charge, resulting in significant computational challenges. To improve scalability, we decompose the problem over both space and time and apply a distributed optimization algorithm. Using a large-scale synthetic California test case with realistic distribution models and real wildfire risk data, we show that distributed optimization can solve large-scale multi-period switching problems that are otherwise intractable for centralized solvers. We also discuss challenges and future directions for improving the distributed algorithm's convergence performance as the number of time periods increases.

• Research Organization: National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), Golden, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Electricity (OE)
• DOE Contract Number: AC36-08GO28308
• OSTI ID: 3015011
• Report Number(s): NLR/CP-5D00-93128
• Resource Type: Conference paper
• Conference Information: Presented at 16th IEEE PowerTech 2025, 29 June - 3 July 2025, Kiel, Germany
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION
distributed optimization
integrated transmission-distribution
mixed-integer linear program
wildfire mitigation