The increasing penetration of distributed generation (DG) power plants into distribution networks (DNs) causes various issues concerning, e.g., stability, protection equipment, and voltage regulation. Thus, the necessity to develop proper control techniques to allow power delivery to customers in compliance with power quality and reliability standards (PQR) has become a relevant issue in recent years. This paper proposes an optimized distributed control approach based on DN sensitivity analysis and on decentralized reactive/active power regulation capable of maintaining voltage levels within regulatory limits and to offer ancillary services to the DN, such as voltage regulation. At the same time, it tries to minimize DN active power losses and the reactive power exchanged with the DN by the DG units. The validation of the proposed control technique has been conducted through a several number of simulations on a real MV Italian distribution system
This paper presents a method to identify and localize failures in smart grids. The method is based on a carefully designed Petri net (PN) that captures the modeling details of the protection system of the distribution network and allows the detection/identification of failures in data transmission and faults in the distribution network by means of simple matrix operations. The design of the PN model is carried out by carefully composing multiple PN models for single protection systems: Such an approach allows the identification of the faults despite possible strong penetration of distributed generation. In order to verify the method, two case studies are discussed. The results highlight that the proposed method can remove a lot of the complexity of the associated data analysis despite the possible presence of malfunctioning protection systems and misinformation due to communication and other errors.
A method for optimal switches placement in distribution systems with distributed generation is presented in this paper. According to both technical and economical issues, the method allows minimizing the unsupplied loads in case of permanent faults, while limiting the number of installed switches. The problem is formulated as a mixed integer non linear programming problem (MINLP) and the solution is obtained by a new metaheuristic algorithm, i.e., the Alliance Algorithm. The method is based on self-microgrids forming and allows improving the continuity of the service as confirmed by simulation results on both an IEEE standard and a real test network
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