Analysis of renewable generation's integration using multi-objective fashion for multistage distribution network expansion planning

Abstract

In this paper, the integration of intermittent distributed generation (wind and solar) is dealt with by proposing a multi-objective multistage distribution network expansion planning formulation based on epsilon-constraint method. This approach allows the planners to obtain pareto-optimal solutions based on the two objective functions: (1) installation costs of distributed generation, substations, feeders, maintenance costs of assets, costs of energy purchased from substations, cost of unserved energy and (2) utilization of renewable distributed generation. To represent the intermittent nature of load and renewable distributed generation, several time blocks are utilized, and its effectiveness is compared with an existing approach. The overall problem is formulated as a mixed-integer linear programming and a linear equation-based substation price is utilized within the optimization framework to reduce the size of the problem. The proposed method is applied to the modified 24-nodes test network for different cases to analyse the utilization of renewable distributed generation from different point of views and it is inferred from the results that the proposed model yields a variety of planning solutions which are better to increase the utilization of renewable distributed generation.