Zero-Sum Power Factor Games
BibTeX
@misc{khanpour_games_2026,
title={{Zero-Sum Power Factor Games}},
author={Cameron Khanpour and Samuel Talkington and Mathieu Dahan and Daniel K. Molzahn},
year={2026},
howpublished={submitted},
eprint={2608.20298},
archivePrefix={arXiv},
primaryClass={eess.SY}
}Abstract
Variable active power injections arising from device behavior or compromised dispatch complicate voltage regulation in electric power networks with distributed energy resources (DERs). An operator can limit the resulting voltage deviations by remotely selecting DER reactive power parameters before observing the active power injections. IEEE Standard 1547-2018 specifies constant power factor as one such control mode, coupling each device's reactive power to its realized active power. Using a linear voltage model, we formulate the operator's decision as a robust minimax problem in which the operator minimizes the largest feasible aggregate voltage deviation. We solve this problem by expressing the power factor decisions through continuous reactive to active power ratios and exactly decomposing the payoff according to the signs of the voltage deviations. When every feasible voltage residual remains on its initial side of nominal, the resulting ratios cancel each injection's contribution and yield a closed form minimax strategy. We identify realistic DER ratings for which this strategy applies and quantify the regulation capacity lost under restricted power factor ranges. Numerical tests check the cancellation computation, solve the complete minimax problem directly at a representative DER rating, and compare the linear voltage predictions with nonlinear AC power flow.