Corrective soft bus-bar splitting for reliable operation of hybrid AC/DC grids

Transmission system operators face significant hurdles in integrating variable renewables and facilitating operational flexibility. This has sparked renewed interest in optimizing network capacity utilization. This paper explores the synergy between two flexibility-enhancing methods in hybrid AC/DC grids: Voltage Source Converter (VSC) set-point control pre- and post-contingency, and corrective Network Topology Reconfiguration (NTR). This paper introduces soft bus-bar splitting for converter substations with modular architectures to maximize grid flexibility. We propose an approach to optimize the topology of hybrid AC/DC grids under N-1 security constraints. As the original problem is NP-hard, this paper utilizes a column-and-constraint generation algorithm. Case studies on IEEE 5, 24, 39, and 67 hybrid AC/DC systems show superiority of the proposed method, manifested as significant improvement in operating costs, security, and converter redispatch needs, under different loading conditions. • This paper introduces soft bus-bar splitting in hybrid AC/DC grids. • This paper considers N-1 security-constrained optimal power flow with corrective switching. • Column-and-constraint generation decomposition is utilized to solve NP- hard problem. • Case studies on four benchmark systems show the effectiveness of soft bus-bar splitting.