Renewable Curtailment Fairness in Distribution Networks: Application of Division Rules

Abstract

Curtailment of renewables is required during peak generation intervals to avoid overvoltage issues. However, it results in fairness issues. Therefore, the application of four widely used division rules (proportional, constrained equal awards, constrained equal losses, and sequential priority) is analyzed in this study for the renewable curtailment problem. First, a real power capping method is used to determine the total power to be curtailed in the network to avoid overvoltage. Then, the net curtailable power and power caps of each bus having PV are fed to the division rules. The division rules decide the power curtailment for each bus while following system constraints. The fairness of results, obtained via each method, is analyzed using Jain's fairness index. Simulation results have shown that proportional rule outperforms the other three rules in terms of fairness. However, the constrained equal losses rule can be useful if the objective is to incentivize small-scale PV owners. Finally, the priority rule can be used only if some nodes have a significant impact on the distribution network during system contingencies.