Grid planning with a large amount of small scale solar and wind power

Abstract: The total energy demand in the world is expected to increase in the future years due to thehigh development rate of developing countries. Access to energy enables development, butthe current global energy mix has to be modified if a sustainable growth is desired. Renewableenergy sources (RES) benefit from both a political and economic support from manygovernments and international entities. The growing installation of RES takes place both inlarge scale, as wind farms with sizes 10 – 1000 MW, and in small scale in homes or smallenterprises with sizes 100 W – 100 kW. Small scale wind power connected to the grid is rarenowadays except in the case of remote mini-grids. By contrast, small scale solar photovoltaic(PV) power is being more and more commonly installed, especially in the form of investorownedroof-installed units. Taking increasing small scale solar and wind power into accountin network planning is a challenge faced by the distribution system operator (DSO).The aim of this thesis is to present a guideline that assists DSOs when planning lowvoltage (LV) distribution networks (DN) with a large amount of small scale distributedgeneration (DG) on a short-term perspective. A review on integration issues of DG isperformed and over-voltage constraints are identified as the most relevant issue. Simple ruleshave already been designed for individual DG units, as the one presented in the AMKhandbookpublished by Svensk Energi; but these are not valid any more when consideringmore than one DG unit. The new proposed guideline employs the AMK-handbook as astarting point and develops it further by including the interaction between DG units. Theguideline is then applicable to scenarios with more than one DG unit. The maximum capacityof a new DG unit applying for a connection to a grid is calculated based on the location andcapacity of the already installed DG units, and without any reinforcement. The proposedguideline can be applied under no load and minimum load condition.Since this thesis is a collaboration project between KTH-Royal Institute of Technologyand Vattenfall R&D, two specific Swedish LV distribution networks owned by VattenfallEldistribution AB are studied. Scenarios with different penetration levels of DG, with valuesbetween 12% and 71%, and capacity of individual DG units below 43.5 kW are analyzed.Evaluation of the results shows that the proposed guideline leads to acceptable results. Thedevelopment of future simple guidelines is suggested to be based on the following twoaspects: absolute and relative location of the DG units; and a correct identification of the weakbus. Relative location reveals the interaction with other DG units within the DN. Moreover, itis stated that the use of the penetration level as a planning measure, based on the total DGcapacity, has a limited application.