Integrating LV Network Models and Load-Flow Calculations into Smart Grid Planning

Increasing energy prices and the greenhouse effect demand a more efficient supply of energy. More residents start to install their own energy generation sources such as photovoltaic cells. The introduction of distributed generation in the low-voltage network can have effects that were unexpected when the network was designed and could lead to a bad power quality. These developments ask for better insight in the effects of a planning for a fleet of households in a network. This paper presents the results of adding network models to planning strategies. Forward-backward load-flow calculations for a three phase low-voltage network are implemented to simulate the network. The results from load-flow calculations are used as feedback for demand side management. The results in this paper show that the implementation is both fast and accurate enough for integration purposes. Combining load-flow feedback and demand side management leads to improved worst-case voltage levels and cable usage whilst peak-shaving optimization performance does not degrade significantly. These results indicate that load-flow calculations should be integrated with demand side management methodologies to evaluate whether networks support the effects of steering production and consumption. More sophisticated integration of network models are left for future work.