Impact of replacing overhead lines with aerial bundled cable, and installation of new transformers to reduce losses and improve distribution network voltage profiles, technical and economic analysis

Abstract

Today, reducing distribution system losses is a top priority in the design and operation of electricity grids. In an electricity grid, a significant percentage of the power and energy generated in power stations is wasted on the way to the transmission system. Losses can occur at all levels of the system's power, namely, production, transmission, and distribution system. The low voltage level, high current level, and radial distribution system structure leads to an increase in the percentage of losses in the distribution sector. For example, in 2018, about 80% of power system losses occurred in distribution systems in Iran. Several methods have been proposed to reduce the losses such as placing capacitors at medium and low voltage levels, reconfiguring the grids, increasing the cross-section in conductors, and so on in recent years. In this article, two practical and effective solutions to reduce losses in the distribution system are studied and analyzed. The first solution is to install transformers in overload points of the network to reduce technical losses and increase the reliability and stability of the grid and improve voltage profiles, and the second solution is the plan to replace the overhead lines with the aerial bundled cable to reduce nontechnical losses. Sheet 13 of Qom distribution system is considered as a study network in order to investigate and analyze the impact of implementing these two proposed solutions in reducing losses and it also uses the data of data logger device installed in the distribution system as well as the simulation data obtained in the CYMDIST software. In order to more accurately and comprehensively analyze the impact of the proposed solutions on loss reduction, based on the annual load growth in the Qom distribution system, studies are presented for 5 years. Finally, based on two suggested solutions, three scenarios are presented and the effective scenario is identified and This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Utilization of physical devices for the improvement of power quality indicators during the COVID-19 pandemic and uncoordinated integration of low carbon units

“…The replacement of distribution lines and cables is another way of decreasing power quality problems and network losses by the investment in the equipment. The authors in [22] provide a technical and economic analysis of the overhead lines replacement with the goal of losses reduction and voltage profiles improvement. A loss reduction by the replacement of distribution lines is also investigated in [23] .…”