Cost-Benefit Analyses of Active Distribution Network Management, Part II: Investment Reduction Analysis

Based on the traditional network expansion planning formulation, a new formulation is built by taking into consideration the curtailment of renewable energy generation (REG), e.g., wind farm generation. The objective is to minimize the total cost of building new circuits and to curtail the output of REG generation. Loss in REG generation curtailment is computed according to its annual output duration curve. In the proposed formulation, operational conditions under peak and trough load levels, the different outputs of REG, and the N-1 security criterion are altogether considered. The whole formulation is solved by Benders´ decomposition method. The proposed method is tested on a practical network. Network expansion schemes obtained from the classical and the proposed methods are compared and analyzed. Test results show that network investment can be reduced or deferred by deploying the autonomous regional active network management system (AuRA-NMS). Although some of the wind farm generation is curtailed, the loss is smaller than the reduction of network investment cost. The present work shows the potential of installing an active control system as an alternative of network reinforcement to accommodate increasing REG connections.