Anna Kowalska-Pyzalska

OPTIMAL PLACEMENT OF DISTRIBUTED GENERATION IN DISTRIBUTION NETWORK: ANALYSIS OF ECONOMIC AND TECHNICAL EFFECTIVENESS OF INVESTMENTS
Anna Kowalska-Pyzalska: Wroclaw University of Technology, Faculty of Computer Science and Management, Institute of Organization and Management, Wroclaw, Poland, Phone: +48713202524, Fax: +48713203504, email: anna.kowalska@pwr.wroc.pl

Overview Distributed generation (DG), which include renewable energy sources (RES) as well as cogeneration, is an important trend in energy market all over the world. The contribution of DG in energy generation, especially on the level of medium and low voltage is increasing. It is a big challenge for distribution system network operators (DNO), because DG may impact the reliability, voltage level, loss of energy and hinder the operation of the power grid. On the other hand if distributed energy sources are placed in an optimal way, they may improve the systems parameters, and may bring technical benefits (e.g. improvement of the voltage level, decrease of energy loss) as well essential economic benefits (e.g. lower cost, because of limitation of energy purchase from the system or suspended reinforcement of the power grid and significant income from energy sales). From the DNOs point of view it is crucial to connect energy sources with the most optimal nominal power level to the most optimal nodes of the power grid in order to maximize technical and economic benefits of this connection. On the other hand the investor is mainly interested in choosing the solutions, that will bring him the largest profit and the fastest return on investment. Methods In this paper two multi-criteria decision making methods are presented: one is based on linear programming method and the second one is based on optimization of the coordinates. Both methods deal with optimization of DG placement into the distribution network. In the proposed algorithms economic effectiveness of the alternative solutions as well as technical aspects of the integration are considered. Analysis is made from the investors point of view. The technical demands of the DNO are treated as the constraints that the solutions must fulfill. That is why the aim of the optimization is to maximize the goal function: find solutions that will guarantee high net present value, fast return on investment as well as the decrease of the power loss and improvement of the voltage level at the considered power grid. The methods are tested on two residential test-grids. Results The results of the optimization by the means of both methods are presented. The comparison of the obtained results is discussed. The results show that both methods help the investor to choose o ptimal investments alternatives that would bring him the highest economic benefits. Moreover these solutions are beneficial also for the DNO, as they improve significantly the parameters of the power grid. Conclusions Nowadays the number of DG is rapidly increasing. DNO and investors require tools which will enable them to make a decision how to choose the most optimal solutions - investments. In case when DNO is not the investor, by the means of the proposed algorithm, he gets to know what are the best possible nodes for connection of DG. Secondly, investors of DG obtain useful information which variants are the most profitable and which of them should receive positive opinion of the DNO (approval and permission of the integration of DG with the gird), because of their positive impact on the grids parameters. References Alarcon-Rodriguez A., Ault G., Galloway S. (2010) Multi-objective planning of distributed energy resources: a review of the state-of-the-art, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Review 14 (2010): 1353-1366. Celli G., Mocci S., Pilo F., Soma G. (2008) A multi -objective approach for the optimal distributed generation allocation with environmental constraints, Proceedings of the 10th conference on probabilistic methods applied to power systems PMAPS, 2008.

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