A review on recent advances in scenario aggregation methods for power system analysis

Abstract: Worldwide commitments to net zero greenhouse emissions have accelerated investments in renewable energy resources. The requirements for operating and planning power systems are becoming stringent because of the need to take into account the uncertainty associated with renewable generation. Several modeling frameworks that consider the inherent uncertainty in the operation and planning of the power system have been extensively studied. Stochastic optimization has been the most popular approach among these frameworks due to its intuitive representation, especially when formulated using discrete probabilistic scenarios to represent the random variables. Although many scenarios representing all possible uncertain operating conditions would be needed to accurate evaluate stochastic operation and planning models, the size of the scenario set impacts computational complexity, posing a significant tradeoff between uncertainty detail representation and computational tractability. During the last decade, a large body of research has focused on developing new scenario aggregation methods to derive reduced scenario sets that show properties similar to the original scenario set while decreasing computational burden. This review provides an up-to-date, comprehensive classification and analysis of the literature related to scenario aggregation methods for addressing power system optimization problems. First, we present a general framework and the aggregation methodologies. Then, the main studies related to temporal and spatial scenario aggregation are described, followed by a bibliometric analysis of the main publication sources, authors, and application problems. Finally, we provide a numerical analysis and discuss 16 aggregation methods for the transmission expansion planning problem. Finally, recommendations, opportunities, and conclusions are discussed.