Utilization of Battery Storage for Flexible Power Management in Active Distribution Networks

Integration of energy storage in power distribution systems is expected to be high in the future to manage the power variations from decentralized renewable energy resources and meet the load demand reliably. In this paper, utilization of battery storage by the distribution system operator for peak shaving, reduction of network power loss and network congestion management is addressed for a low-voltage active distribution network. An optimal control method for battery storage based on model predictive control is proposed to minimize the peak PV power injection to the grid also considering the network power loss reduction and battery degradation. The proposed method solves a linear optimal power flow formulation to calculate the battery active and reactive power set points at each time step. The proposed method is useful in accommodating maximum PV power without violating the network voltage and current limits. Simulation studies are conducted using Matlab on a Danish lowvoltage distribution network. The simulation results show that the proposed control method is effective for reducing the peak PV power in-feed with minimum network power loss and battery degradation.