Sizing and Siting of a Concentrating Solar Power Plant in an Unbalanced Radial Distribution System

Abstract

Concentrating solar power parabolic trough collector (CSP PTC) technologies are promising renewable power generations utilizing solar thermal power to produce electricity. Its integration in the distribution system reduces the system loss and improves the voltage profile. However, improper sizing and siting could cause reverse power flow and voltage limit violation. Another issue is the high investment, operating, and maintenance costs of the CSP technology as contributed mostly by thermal energy storage (TES). In this paper, the sizing and siting of a CSP PTC plant without TES in IEEE 37-bus feeder were implemented using the Component Object Model interface of MATLAB and OpenDSS. With the goal of minimizing losses, parametric simulation was performed using System Advisor Model. Consequently, integrating a 10-MW CSP PTC plant at bus 709 resulted the least system loss of 61.94 kVA and most improved voltage profile having average total voltage deviation of 0.82.