Event-informed Allocation of Energy Storage, Voltage Regulators and Infrastructure Upgrades in Distribution Network Planning

This article presents a novel numerical approach aimed at finding a distribution network expansion plan that prevents future congestion and voltage issues. Forecasted duration and intensity of thermal and voltage violation events are used to determine a pool of potential candidates for infrastructure (i.e., line/cable) upgrade, voltage regulator, and energy storage system installations. This is complemented with an algorithm to obtain the minimum-cost list of these candidates that solves all constraint violation events using binary linear programming. This approach is validated using the modified IEEE 33-bus network and a real 1171-bus feeder in the West of Ireland through numerous high-resolution quasi-static time series simulations. Three pools of candidates and three cost projections were considered to explore the method’s sensitivity to different scenarios. Results show that the proposed methodology is a versatile tool for designers, planners and policymakers. The methodology can ensure that the investment plan solves all forecasted violation events. Nevertheless, we show that accepting a marginal degree of violations may be acceptable and would significantly reduce investment costs.