Voltage Regulation through Smart Utilization of Potential Reactive Power Resources

The introduction of demand response concept, in addition to increment of penetration of distributed generation (DG) based on renewable energies, make opportunities for the novel control schemes to be integrated in power system on a smart grid framework. Voltage control methods in power systems needs proper coordination among reactive power resources and conventional volt/var control equipments. In this work, potential reactive power resources are investigated and then, reactive power output of renewable DG units and controllable loads along with operation of conventional voltage controllers are optimized using a centralized control scheme. Considering the variability of demand and generation, the controller would minimize voltage variations in distribution network. The operation of distribution network is optimized using genetic algorithm (GA). The method is implemented on a sample 14-bus distribution network and the results show the improvement of voltage profile of different buses.