H.9 Version 5.0 – released Dec 17, 2014

The Matpower 5.0 User’s Manual is available online.⁸³

New Features

• Continuation power flow with tangent predictor and Newton method corrector, based on code contributed by Shrirang Abhyankar and Alex Flueck.
• SDP_PF, a set of applications of a semidefinite programming relaxation of the power flow equations, contributed by Dan Molzahn (see extras/sdp_pf):
  • Globally optimal AC OPF solver (under certain conditions).
  • Functions to check sufficient conditions for:
    • global optimality of OPF solution
    • insolvability of power flow equations
• PSS/E RAW data conversion to Matpower case format (experimental) based on code contributed by Yujia Zhu.
• Brand new extensible Matpower options architecture based on options struct instead of options vector.
• Utility routines to check network connectivity and handle islands and isolated buses.
• New extension implementing DC OPF branch flow soft limits. See help toggle_softlims for details.
• New and updated support for 3rd party solvers:
  • CPLEX 12.6
  • GLPK
  • Gurobi 5.x
  • Ipopt 3.11.x
  • Knitro 9.x.x
  • Optimization Toolbox 7.1
• Numerous performance enhancements.
• New functions:
  • runcpf() for continuation power flow.
  • case_info() for summarizing system information, including network connectivity.
  • extract_islands() to extract a network island into a separate Matpower case.
  • find_islands() to detect network islands.
  • @opt_model/describe_idx() to identify variable, constraint or cost row indices to aid in debugging.
  • margcost() for computing the marginal cost of generation.
  • psse2mpc() to convert PSS/E RAW data into Matpower case format.
  • get_losses() to compute branch series losses and reactive charging injections and derivatives as functions of bus voltages.
  • New experimental functions in extras/misc for computing loss factors, checking feasibility of solutions, converting losses to negative bus injections and modifying an OPF problem to make it feasible.
• Added case5.m, a 5-bus, 5-generator example case from Rui Bo.
• New options:
  • scale_load() can scale corresponding gencost for dispatchable loads.
  • makeJac() can return full Jacobian instead of reduced version used in Newton power flow updates.
  • modcost() can accept a vector of shift/scale factors.
  • total_load() can return actual or nominal values for dispatchable loads.
  • runpf(), runopf(), etc. can send pretty-printed output to file without also sending it to the screen.
  • out.suppress_detail option suppresses all output except system summary (on by default for large cases).
  • opf.init_from_mpc option forces some solvers to use user-supplied starting point.
  • MIPS 1.1 includes many new user-settable options.
• Reimplementated @opf_model class as sub-class of the new @opt_model class, which supports indexed named sets of variables, constraints and costs.
• Many new tests in test suite.

Bugs Fixed

• Running a power flow for a case with DC lines but no gencost no longer causes an error.
• Fixed a bug in runpf() where it was using the wrong initial voltage magnitude for generator buses marked as PQ buses. Power flow of solved case was not converging in zero iterations as expected.
• Fixed fatal bug in MIPS for unconstrained, scalar problems. Thanks to Han Na Gwon.
• Fixed a bug in int2ext() where converting a case to internal ordering before calling runpf() or runopf() could result in a fatal error due to mismatched number of columns in internal and external versions of data matrices. Thanks to Nasiruzzaman and Shiyang Li for reporting and detailing the issue.
• DC OPF now correctly sets voltage magnitudes to 1 p.u. in results.
• Fixed a bug in MIPS where a near-singular matrix could produce an extremely large Newton step, resulting in incorrectly satisfying the relative feasibility criterion for successful termination.
• Improved the starting point created for Ipopt, Knitro and MIPS for variables that are only bounded on one side.
• Fixed bug in savecase() where the function name mistakenly included the path when the fname input included a path.
• Fixed bugs in runpf() related to enforcing generator reactive power limits when all generators violate limits or when the slack bus is converted to PQ.
• Fixed crash when using Knitro to solve cases with all lines unconstrained.
• Fixed memory issue resulting from nested om fields when repeatedly running an OPF using the results of a previous OPF as input. Thanks to Carlos Murillo-Sánchez.
• Fixed fatal error when uopf() shuts down all gens attempting to satisfy limits.
• Reactive power output of multiple generators at a PQ bus no longer get re-allocated when running a power flow.
• Fixed a bug in savecase() where a gencost matrix with extra columns of zeros resulted in a corrupted Matpower case file.
• Fixed bug in runpf() that caused a crash for cases with pf.enforce_q_lims turned on and exactly two Q limit violations, one Qmax and one Qmin. Thanks to Jose Luis Marín.

Incompatible Changes

• Optional packages TSPOPF and MINOPF must be updated to latest versions.
• Renamed cdf2matp() to cdf2mpc() and updated the interface to be consistent with psse2mpc().
• Removed ot_opts field, replaced with linprog_opts and quadprog_opts fields in the opt argument to qps_matpower() and qps_ot().
• The name of the mips() option used to specify the maximum number of step-size reductions with step_control on was changed from max_red to sc.red_it for consistency with other Matpower options.
• Removed max_it option from qps_matpower() (and friends) args. Use algorithm specific options to control iteration limits.
• Changed behavior of branch angle difference limits so that 0 is interpreted as unbounded only if both ANGMIN and ANGMAX are zero.
• In results struct returned by an OPF, the value of results.raw.output.alg is now a string, not an old-style numeric alg code.
• Removed:
  • Support for Matlab 6.x.
  • Support for constr() and successive LP-based OPF solvers.
  • Support for Gurobi 4.x/gurobi_mex() interface.
  • extras/cpf, replaced by runcpf().
  • extras/psse2matpower, replaced by psse2mpc().