Patent ID: 8283903

Claim:
A method for determining optimal settings for controllable taps u t of voltage regulating transformers and capacitor bank witches u c in a distribution network, comprising: receiving a network model and determining a set of state variables x and control variables u; using an objective function, calculating an overall objective value of the network under initial control variables u; performing a var optimization calculation with the controllable tap settings u t of the controllable taps fixed at an initial value, or the best value found so far, to output an optimized set of control settings u c of the capacitor bank switches; performing a voltage optimization calculation with the control settings u c fixed at the best solution found so far, to output an optimal set of control settings u t ; using said objective function, evaluating the system performance using said optimal set of control settings u t and u c and repeating said steps of performing var optimization and performing voltage optimization until either the control values u t and u c do not change from one iteration to the next, the objective function value does not change or if the new objective function value is greater than the last; and outputting said control values u t and u c to a distribution control system.