Facet-Defining Inequalities for the Angle-Based DC Optimal Transmission Switching Formulation

Abstract: The switching of transmission lines can significantly improve the economic and operational efficiency of power systems. The Direct-Current Optimal Transmission Switching (DC-OTS) problem provides a formal framework for minimizing power generation costs by reconfiguring the transmission network topology under a linearized power flow model. DC-OTS is typically formulated as a mixed-integer linear program that incorporates disjunctive constraints to capture the required relationships between certain variables via big-M parameters. More specifically, these parameters represent upper bounds on voltage angle differences across non-operational transmission lines. In practice, overly conservative (and arbitrary) bounds tend to be used. The belief is that tightening these values requires the solution of the computationally intractable longest path problem. This work challenges that view through a novel polyhedral analysis of the angle-based DC-OTS formulation. We construct an extended formulation for the convex hull of an angle-based relaxation and derive facet-defining inequalities that tighten angle-difference bounds.