Smart Curtailment for Congestion Management in LV Distribution Network

The rapid proliferation of distributed energy resources (DERs) leads to capacity challenges, i.e. network congestions, in the low-voltage (LV) distribution networks. A number of strategies are being widely studied to tackle the challenges with direct switching actions such as load shedding or power curtailment. On the other hand, various market-based demand response (DR) programs have been developed to influence the large number of DERs to use their flexibility to deal with network congestions. However, most of the market-based solutions rely on the flexibilities of the DERs, thus cannot solve the congestion when flexibility is not available in the network. To complement the market-based solutions, a smart active power curtailment based mechanism is necessary for managing the congestions in the distribution network. In this paper, we propose a novel method for congestion management by active power curtailment based on a Mixed-Integer Programming technique. In addition, two greedy selection methods together with fair power curtailment and security constrained OPF methods have been developed for the sake of comparison. The overall performance of the proposed approach and the comparison with other methods have been verified by a simulation with a typical LV network of the Netherlands.