Impact of increasing penetration of distributed generation on the number of voltage dips experienced by end-customers

An increasing shift from large generation units ("centralized generation") to small generation units ("distributed energy resources" or DER) will lead to a reduction of the fault level in the transmission system. This will have a range of impacts on the operation and security of transmission systems. In this paper the impact on the number of dips as experienced by end-customers will be studied. The reduction in fault level will in general lead to an increased number of dips at the interface between transmission and distribution. The situation as seen from the end-customer is more complicated however. There is no general rule on how the dip frequency for end-customers is impacted. It depends strongly on the transmission system, on the location and amount of large generator stations taken out of operation, on the type of distributed generation and on the immunity of the end-customers against voltage dips.