DG Impact on Investment Deferral: Network Planning and Security of Supply

• Published in: IEEE transactions on power systems Vol. 25; no. 2; pp. 1134 - 1141
• Main Authors: Wang, David T.-C, Ochoa, Luis F, Harrison, Gareth P
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.05.2010; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Cogeneration; Collaborative work; Conferences; Distributed control; Distributed generation; distribution networks; Environmental economics; Financing; Government; Investment; investment deferral; Investments; Methodology; Networks; planning; Power generation economics; Reinforcement; Robustness; Security; Strategic planning; Technology planning
• ISSN: 0885-8950; 1558-0679
• DOI: 10.1109/TPWRS.2009.2036361

Despite the technical challenges in properly accommodating distributed generation (DG), one of the major and well-recognized benefits is the ability of DG to defer future demand-related network investment. It is, however, often poorly represented in existing planning approaches and analysis ignores the potential security of supply benefits. Here, a novel, more integrated, approach is presented wherein reinforcements required by system security standards (e.g., N - 1) are also taken into account. The DG contributions to system security provided by U.K. Engineering Recommendation P2/6 are adopted, enabling the methodology to quantify the deferment produced by DG considering both demand growth- and system security-related investment. The methodology employs the successive elimination algorithm together with multistage planning and is applied to a generic, meshed, U.K. distribution network. Results show that, despite differences between technology types, significant economic benefits can be harnessed when strategically incorporating DG at the planning stage.