An Economic Criterion for Distributed Renewable Generation Planning

Abstract

This letter presents a simple temporal-scenario-based economic criterion for planning distributed renewable generation (DRG) in the zone-type distribution network. The advantage of the proposed criterion is that its formulation does not rely on power flow calculations and optimization iterations, thus can quickly indicate the economic feasibility of the DRG unit. A case study has verified its effectiveness, and also indicates that the proposed criterion could calculate the economic attractiveness or resistance for renewable energy investors in this zone.

Keywords::

• distributed renewable generation
• planning
• environmental cost
• temporal scenarios
• economic criterion

FUNDING

This work was supported in part by the Open Research Subject of Sichuan Province Key Laboratory of Power Electronics Energysaving Technologies & Equipment (szjj2017-052), in part by the Scientific Foundation for the Talent Program of Sichuan University (20822041A4161), in part by the Science and Technology Project of State Grid Corporation of China (52130417002R) “Research and application of technical path development and its precise investment decision in active distribution network”.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yue Xiang

Yue Xiang received his B.S. and Ph.D. degree from Sichuan University, China, in 2010 and 2016, where he is currently an associate research professor. His main research interests are power system planning and optimal operation, renewable energy integration, electric vehicles, and smart grid.

Yong Liu

Yong Liu received his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering (power system direction) from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 2013. He received his M.S. and B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Shandong University, China, in 2007 and 2010, respectively. He is currently a research assistant professor in the DOE/NSF-cofunded engineering research center CURENT and Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His research interests are wide-area power system measurement, power system dynamic analysis and renewable energy integration.

Junyong Liu

Junyong Liu received his Ph.D. degree from Brunel University, UK, in 1998. He is currently a Professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Information, Sichuan University, China. His main research areas of interest are power system planning, operation, stability and computer applications.

Yilu Liu

Yilu Liu received her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Ohio State University, Columbus, in 1986 and 1989. She received the B.S. degree from Xian Jiaotong University, China. Dr. Liu is currently the Governor's Chair at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). She is also the deputy Director of the DOE/NSF-cofunded engineering research center CURENT. She is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and National Academy of Inventors (NAI). Prior to joining UTK/ORNL, she was a Professor at Virginia Tech. She led the effort to create the North American power grid Frequency Monitoring Network (FNET) at Virginia Tech, which is now operated at UTK and ORNL as GridEye. Her current research interests include power system wide-area monitoring and control, large interconnection-level dynamic simulations, electromagnetic transient analysis, and power transformer modeling and diagnosis.

Kunyu Zuo

Kunyu Zuo received the B.S. degrees from Sichuan University, China. He is currently pursuing the M.S. degree from Sichuan University, China. His research interests are distribution network planning and operation.