A Decision Support System to Analyze the Influence of Distributed Generation in Energy Distribution Networks

Abstract

Recent changes in electric network infrastructure and government policies have created opportunities for the employment of distributed generation to achieve a variety of benefits. In this paper we propose a decisions support system to assess some of the technical benefits, namely: 1) voltage profile improvement; 2) power losses reduction; and 3) network capacity investment deferral, brought through branches congestion reduction. The simulation platform incorporates the classical Newton- Raphson algorithm to solve the power flow equations. Simulation results are given for a real Semi-Urban medium voltage network, considering different load scenarios (Summer, Winter, Valley, Peak and In Between Hours), different levels of micro- generation penetration, and different location distributions for the microgeneration units.