Determination of Hosting Capacity of Solar and Wind Distributed Generation (DG) Using Stochastic Approach

Abstract

Integration of distributed generation (DG) in the distribution system has provided multiple impacts such as reduction of power losses and improvement of voltage profile. However, high penetration of such technology may increase voltage fluctuations and reverse power flow affecting reliability and power quality. To address these problems, maximum allowable penetration level of DG must be properly identified. This study presents an approach in determining the solar and wind DG hosting capacity of IEEE 37-bus test system. This also analyzed the effect of increasing penetration to system losses and voltage profile. Iterative DG placement through genetic algorithm (GA) was implemented in IEEE 37-bus test system using the Component Object Model (COM) interface between MATLAB and OpenDSS. The results show that the maximum allowable solar and wind DG units that can be installed in the system are 142 and 136 units, respectively. For both DGs, the power loss curve follows a decreasing linear path as the penetration level increases up to its hosting capacity. However, for wind DG, there is an additional increasing linear trend after the lowest value of the power loss was achieved due to its additional reactive capability.