Multi-stage power distribution planning to accommodate high wind generation capacity

The increasing integration of wind power and other distributed energy resources into modern power distribution systems has made the power distribution planning (PDP) a very interesting and challenging optimization problem. This paper proposes a long-term, multi-stage PDP method for the optimal reconductoring of feeders in order to efficiently meet the load growth demand and optimally accommodate a high wind generation capacity. The proposed PDP method considers various active network management (ANM) schemes and it is formulated as a mixed-integer quadratically constrained programming problem. Results on an 18-bus test system indicate that the proposed PDP method can efficiently accommodate high wind generation capacity with simultaneous reduction of the network investment and operational costs, highlighting the importance of ANM.