Optimal Placement of Wind and Solar Generation Units in Medium and Low Voltage Distribution Systems

Abstract

In Medium and Low voltage electrical distribution systems, the introduction of distributed generation, from renewable energy sources, such as Solar and Wind units, had negatively influences their voltage plan, and increment the losses level. The active and reactive power produced and consumed by those distributed generations had change the ordinary operation of the classical radial distribution networks. In this paper an analysis approach for choosing the optimal placement of wind and solar generation units is proposed to identify the parts of the network with the important capacity to receive distributed generation without producing significant impact on the voltage plan, and the part of the network where connecting even DG with small capacity may lead to major impact on the network voltage and may cause the destruction of the voltage plan, with several voltage drops and rises. The main aim of this paper is to understand how the connection of a DG in any part of the network can influence the voltage magnitude in each network point, and choosing the less influence part of the network as optimal placement for future DG units. A case study is presented, in the IEEE 33-bus system, the results obtained had allowed to divide the network point in three categories, and identifying the optimal placements to connect a wind or a solar generation unit.