[bainsfather]

Can anyone recommend a 'friendly' overview of the 'calculus approach'?

The paper linked in the article from 2003/2008 has been split up into 3 rather technical articles - I was hoping for something easier that just gave me a flavour of the method.

[amelius]

Isn't the Quanta article supposed to be the 'friendly' overview?

[DIARRHEA_xd]

It's lacking. Their explanation for the greedy algo is great, less so for every other. By the end of the article, their 'explanations' degrade to speed analogies.

If I have the names right, your parent is looking for the derivation of "Optimal Power Flow", and its linearization "Linear/DC OPF".