Valorization of ancillary services for the voltage control in a distribution network

Abstract

The distribution grid and distribution system operators (DSOs) are facing a great challenge because of new the technologies, such as plug-in electric vehicles, demand response (DR), and distributed generations (DG). These technologies change the system voltage profile and impact the grid operation. Initially, the DSOs activities are related to grid reinforcement and maintenance. Presently, the unexpected and/or unpredicted power injection totally modifies the voltage profile. The power flow is no longer unidirectional and the consumption loads are no longer inflexible. To adapt to this change, there are two prevalent ways: a) using ancillary services and b) reinforcing system grid. Unfortunately, ancillary services haven’t fully been introduced into the distribution system. In order to introduce ancillary services into the distribution system, I include DSOs preferences into voltage control cost function. Therefore, depending on DSOs preferences, the usage of each resource will be different. This can promote the development of distribution ancillary services without disturbing the market. The result shows that using ancillary services can help to postpone the grid reinforcement plan up to 23 years in a specific system, and the cost voltage control is lower than the cost of grid reinforcement. However, the system reinforcement cannot be avoided if the demand keeps growing. The result also shows that even with different preferences, the effects of using ancillary services are the same, but the costs of voltage control are different.