  The constantly increasing number of power generation devices based on
renewables is calling for a transition from the centralized control of
electrical distribution grids to a distributed control scenario. In this
context, distributed generators (DGs) are exploited to achieve other objectives
beyond supporting loads, such as the minimization of the power losses along the
distribution lines. The aim of this work is that of designing a full-fledged
system that extends existing state of the art algorithms for the distributed
minimization of power losses. We take into account practical aspects such as
the design of a communication and coordination protocol that is resilient to
link failures and manages channel access, message delivery and DG coordination.
Thus, we analyze the performance of the resulting optimization and
communication scheme in terms of power loss reduction, reduction of aggregate
power demand, convergence rate and resilience to communication link failures.
After that, we discuss the results of a thorough simulation campaign, obtained
using topologies generated through a statistical approach that has been
validated in previous research, by also assessing the performance deviation
with respect to localized schemes, where the DGs are operated independently.
Our results reveal that the convergence and stability performance of the
selected algorithms vary greatly. However, configurations exist for which
convergence is possible within five to ten communication steps and, when just
30% of the nodes are DGs, the aggregate power demand is roughly halved. Also,
some of the considered approaches are quite robust against link failures as
they still provide gains with respect to the localized solutions for failure
rates as high as 50%.

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