An Effective Formulation for Minimizing Distribution Network Costs Through Distributed Generation Allocation in Systems With Variable Loads

The operational cost of distribution systems is significantly affected by the energy losses of the system. Distribution network losses are known to be higher than transmission system losses, constituting over 70% of all the losses that occur in the power system. For the achievement of loss minimization, operation cost mitigation, and generation expense reduction, the efficient allocation of distributed generation (DG) in distribution networks is considered an effective solution. The penetration of renewable DG units in distribution systems has seen an increasing trend in recent times due to the numerous benefits that come with the use of renewable sources for power generation, especially for the environment. Power demand variations and the variability of load levels play a vital role in the determination of the amount of losses that occur on the network and subsequently the optimal generation of DGs. Meanwhile, taking into consideration the variability of load level in the DG allocation problem worsens the computational stress and time significantly. Therefore, this paper has formulated an effective DG allocation model for energy loss minimization considering power demand variation. The developed model was simulated for different distribution systems using A Mathematical Programming Language (AMPL) to validate the performance of the proposed formulation by comparing the proposed model results with two different models (exact and peak load model). Parameters tested in the study are network losses, cost, and computational time. The evaluation of numerical results indicates the proposed model is very effective for DG allocation in terms of losses, cost, and computational time.