Alleviating Solar Energy Congestion in the Distribution Grid via Smart Metering Communications

The operation and control of the existing power grid system, which is challenged with rising demands and peak loads, has been considered passive. Congestion is often discovered in high-demand regions, and at locations where abundant renewable energy is generated and injected into the grid; this is attributed to a lack of transmission lines, transfer capability, and transmission capacity. While developing distributed generation (DG) tends to alleviate the traditional congestion problem, employing information and communications technology (ICT) helps manage DG more effectively. ICT involves a vast amount of data to facilitate a broader knowledge of the network status. Data computation and communications are critical elements that can impact the system performance. In this paper, we consider congestion caused by power surpluses produced from households´ solar units on rooftops or on ground. Disconnecting some solar units is required to maintain the reliability of the distribution grid. We propose a model for the disconnection process via smart metering communications between smart meters and the utility control center. By modeling the surplus congestion issue as a knapsack problem, we can solve it by proposed greedy solutions. Reduced computation time and data traffic in the network can be achieved.