Application of Benders decomposition to transmission expansion planning with N − 1 security constraints

Abstract This paper proposes a methodology for solving a transmission expansion planning problem with N − 1 security constraints consideration. The problem is formulated using a disjunctive model solved by Benders decomposition. A local search procedure is applied to solve the master problem, i.e. investment problem. With this developed methodology, the computational time can be considerably reduced, especially for large system problems, and the global optimality of Bender decomposition can be preserved by solving the master problem in a complete search space for specified iteration numbers. The proposed methodology has been tested with the IEEE 24‐bus system and the southern Brazilian system with satisfactory results. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.