Volume 21: Sustainable Energy Solutions for a Post-COVID Recovery towards a Better Future: Part IV

Feasible Operation Region of a Distribution Network Considering Thermal Constraints Xun Jiang, Jianzhong Wu, Yue Zhou, Wenlong Ming

Abstract

Conventional scenario-based analysis is not able to accurately and comprehensively evaluate the capability of a distribution network to integrate increasing demand and distributed generation (DG) due to their significant uncertainties. To solve this problem, feasible operation region (FOR) was defined and studied, which provides an effective way to obtain the whole picture of hosting capacity of a distribution network. The analytical expressions of thermal boundaries of FOR in a radial distribution network were obtained through theoretical deduction. To validate the obtained thermal boundaries, a point-wise simulation procedure for generating the cross-sections of FOR in two-dimensional power injection space was proposed. An 11kV radial distribution network from the United Kingdom Generic Distribution System (UKGDS) was used for the case study. The results show that the derived thermal boundaries can well approximate the real thermal boundaries of FOR. Moreover, these thermal boundaries of FOR are more accurate than those calculated by a method proposed in a previous study, especially when considering independent reactive power injections in the distribution network.

Keywords Feasible operation region, hosting capacity, thermal boundaries, electrical distribution networks