Increasing DG Integration Level by Network Configuration Subset Analysis

With the increasing number of photovoltaic (PV) distributed generations (DG) being installed on the medium-voltage (MV) level and the fluctuations of the generation and loads, the supply security of the grid requires closer attention. Grid-wide voltage profile, overloading of substation transformers and overloading of lines may become bottlenecks for large-scale integration of PV plants. Here, measures to avoid cost-intensive network reinforcement are of interest. In this paper, analysis of grid reconfiguration and its impact on hosting capacity (HC) and grid operation are studied. Additionally, several PV control scenarios are considered according to current grid codes and grid code enhancement suggestions are made. The study is performed on a 43-bus 20 kV MV network model representative of Luxembourg's grid structure. The modeling, reconfiguration, HC calculation and analysis are done using Pandapower software. The results indicate that by proper reconfiguration of the network the HC can be increased approximately four times compared to the worst configuration and the grid code improvement can further increase the HC by another 15%, depending on the configuration.