Robust expansion planning of reliable and resilient smart distribution network equipped by storage devices

There is a lack in the tools and approaches supporting systematic exploration of simultaneous reliable and resilient (RR) distribution network (DN) planning. This paper proposes a comprehensive robust approach for the robust RR distribution expansion planning (RRRDEP), where the concept of multi-microgrid (multi-MG) as a promising solution is adopted for mitigating the outage times; Battery energy storage system (BESS) is integrated into the model and its contribution to the resilience enhancement is evaluated; Moreover, some other options are also considered such as mesh design of DN which leads to reconfigurable network, utilization of multi-type distributed generations (DGs), and paying attention to capable crisis management team. The uncertainties of electric load, market price, and renewable energy resources as well as voltage dependent load model, are well incorporated into the problem. Also, for evaluation of the different strategies, the planning is performed considering risk-neutral vs. risk-averse DisCos. Simulations are performed on a large-scale distribution network of 138-node. Results showed that by taking a risk-averse strategy, the penetration level of the DGs and BESSs in the expanded network, is increased from 20% to 26%. © 2023