Assessments and recommendations for regulatory framework in overcoming the barriers of integration distributed generation in smart grid process

Abstract

In most places in the world, the electricity is generated in large generating stations. The electricity that is produced, is transmitted through high-voltage transmission system, and then will be transmitted to the consumers through local distributed systems at reduced voltage. Distribution Generation (DG) change the process of transmission by producing the electricity on a customer’s site or at local distribution utility and supply power directly to the local distribution network. Many factors and conditions support the growth of DGwhich makes them having an important role in the electricity system transformation today. Moreover, since the conception of renewable energy, the DG becomes one of most the happening today. A new reform in power sector could be achieved by gaining the advantage of his type of generation. However, the development of this generation is not easy because there some issues in certain countries like from the economic side, technical problems, and commercial issues regarding this new concept in the electricity. Which in turn, the electricity regulatory framework in the world does not support the penetration of DGs and itbecomeobstacles to DGto have position in the electricity market. Those policies made can include unfavourable regimes for network access and market access, lack of transparency and the biggest obstacle is the overall structure of the electricity market itself. The transformation in power sector itself incurs the development of Smart Grid in the electricity network and moreover the growth of DG to expand the renewable energy. The transformation of electricity by having new generators both in numbers and capacity are being connected to distribution networks, which will be continuously trending in the coming years. Nevertheless the expansion of the DGintroduces new challenges to ensure the reliability and quality of power supply. Those distributed energy generations make an effort in certain direction to unpredictable network flows, greater variations in voltage and different network reactive power characteristics. More often local grid constraints come up which negatively have impact to the quality of supply. This situation substantially will give impact to the distributed system operators which generally designed and operated distributed networks through a top-down approach. Generally in the centralized generation, predictable current did not need intense management and monitoring tools. Because of the transformation in electricity, this model is changing. DSO is expected to have extra roles to continue to operate their networks in a secure way and to provide high-quality service to their customers.