Assessment of Distributed Generation Hosting Capacity of Microgrids with Thermal Smart Loads

Abstract

This paper seeks to explore the problem of assessing the renewable distributed generation (DG) hosting capacity of microgrids when thermal smart loads composed of electric water heaters (EWH) interfaced with electric springs (ES) are in place. ESs are positioned to dynamically adjust the power demand of EWHs to match the DG power generation while providing reactive power compensation. A biobjective optimization model is formulated to coordinate the operation of multiple ESs in a way that maximizes the amount of connected DG and simultaneously minimizes the energy losses and consumption of voltage dependent critical loads. The expected result is a set of non-dominated solutions that shows the compromise between DG hosting capacity and energy consumption, and the advantages of using ESs to achieve those objectives.