Review of Concepts to Increase Distributed Generation into the Distribution Network

Distributed Generation (DG) level of penetration is expected to be increasing due to the state and federal governments mandates for utilization of renewable resources. The current Distribution Network (DN) was not originally designed for integration of DG at high penetration levels. Improvements will need to be made to DN to facilitate safe and reliable interconnection of DG at higher penetration levels. This paper gathers and documents the major concerns such as, voltage, protection, and power quality related to DG interconnections as well as the issues with the existing design standards and criteria. Several different DN changes have been proposed to help resolve these issues. The focus of this paper is about the existing DN topology and DG integration issues, as well as documentation and discussion of the proposed solutions. Additional areas of research are identified for further consideration.