%0 Journal Article
%@ 0005-1098
%A Bemporad, Alberto
%A Muñoz de la Peña, David
%A Piazzesi, Peter
%D 2006
%F eprints:494
%I Elsevier Science Limited
%J Automatica
%K Investment planning; Optimal control; Hybrid systems; Mixed-integer programming; Stochastic systems
%N 8
%P 1331-1336
%T Optimal control of investments for quality of supply improvement in electrical energy distribution networks
%U http://eprints.imtlucca.it/494/
%V 42
%X This paper considers the problem of deciding multi-period investments for maintenance and upgrade of electrical energy distribution networks. After describing the network as a constrained hybrid dynamical system, optimal control theory is applied to optimize profit under a complex incentive/penalty mechanism imposed by public authorities. The dynamics of the system and the cost function are translated into a mixed integer optimization model, whose solution gives the optimal investment policy over the multi-period horizon. While for a reduced-size test problem the pure mixed-integer approach provides the best optimal control policy, for real-life large-scale scenarios a heuristic solution is also introduced. Finally, the uncertainty associated with the dynamical model of the network is taken care of by adopting ideas from stochastic programming.