Impacts of increased integration of Wind and Solar generators on the Namibian grid power losses

Abstract

In this paper the impacts of increased integration of wind and solar distributed generators (DG’s) on the Namibian grid active power losses are analysed. Wind and solar energy distributed generators have been considered in this study due to their recent increase in penetration levels worldwide. Moreover, they have the highest potential for energy generation in Namibia. A system modeling and simulation studies were done in DigSILENT PowerFactory software tool. The study was carried out under three scenarios; at 0% penetration (base case), increased wind energy penetration and increased solar energy penetration. Wind and solar generators were integrated separately up to 150 MW each to cover the current generation deficit in Namibia. Thereafter, the impacts of each of these sources on the grid active power losses were analysed. The penetration of the wind distributed generators resulted in a decrease in power losses from 35.37MW at 44.77% to 33.46MW at 60.22%. However, an increase in power losses was later noticed as the penetration level increased to 70.52%. On the other hand, with solar energy penetration, the grid power losses continued to decrease from 34.94MW at 44.77% to 30.93MW at 70.52%. This decrease in the power losses is due to the reduced load current in the network.