  Typical coordination schemes for future power grids require two-way
communications. Since the number of end power-consuming devices is large, the
bandwidth requirements for such two-way communication schemes may be
prohibitive. Motivated by this observation, we study distributed coordination
schemes that require only one-way limited communications. In particular, we
investigate how dual descent distributed optimization algorithm can be employed
in power networks using one-way communication. In this iterative algorithm,
system coordinators broadcast coordinating (or pricing) signals to the
users/devices who update power consumption based on the received signal. Then
system coordinators update the coordinating signals based on the physical
measurement of the aggregate power usage. We provide conditions to guarantee
the feasibility of the aggregated power usage at each iteration so as to avoid
blackout. Furthermore, we prove the convergence of algorithms under these
conditions, and establish its rate of convergence. We illustrate the
performance of our algorithms using numerical simulations. These results show
that one-way limited communication may be viable for coordinating/operating the
future smart grids.
