Control strategies applied to distribution networks with the integration of distributed energy resources - A review

Abstract

The continuous integration of distributed energy resources (DERs) in power systems has opened the need to propose control strategies that tend to mitigate the possible impacts that an unlimited integration can produce. Authors have presented studies that present different control strategies that take advantage of the devices already present in the network or of new elements added, such as DERs. Also, different control architectures that can take full advantage of the capabilities that DERs can offer are studied. Therefore, this article focuses on reviewing the recent literature related to control strategies and architectures applied to distribution networks with DERs as protagonists. The control strategies that exploit the characteristics of DERs to perform control actions are described, and the control architectures adapted to the integration of DERs in distribution networks are detailed. Device modeling approaches are also mentioned, considering that some DERs depend on random variables and can introduce uncertainty in the analyses if their behavior is not modeled correctly. Finally, current and future trends in this area are discussed. Keywords. Control architectures, control strategies, deterministic approach, Distributed Energy Resources, stochastic approach.