A Virtual Tool for Load Flow Analysis in a Micro-Grid

Giovanni Artale, Giuseppe Caravello, Antonio Cataliotti, Valentina Cosentino, Dario Di Cara, Salvatore Guaiana, Ninh Nguyen Quang, Marco Palmeri, Nicola Panzavecchia and Giovanni Tinè
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Giovanni Artale: Department of Engineering, Università degli Studi di Palermo, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Giuseppe Caravello: Department of Engineering, Università degli Studi di Palermo, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Antonio Cataliotti: Department of Engineering, Università degli Studi di Palermo, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Valentina Cosentino: Department of Engineering, Università degli Studi di Palermo, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Dario Di Cara: Institute of Marine Engineering (INM), National Research Council (CNR), 90146 Palermo, Italy
Salvatore Guaiana: Department of Engineering, Università degli Studi di Palermo, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Ninh Nguyen Quang: Institute of Energy Science, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, Hanoi 100000, Vietnam
Marco Palmeri: Department of Engineering, Università degli Studi di Palermo, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Nicola Panzavecchia: Institute of Marine Engineering (INM), National Research Council (CNR), 90146 Palermo, Italy
Giovanni Tinè: Institute of Marine Engineering (INM), National Research Council (CNR), 90146 Palermo, Italy

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 12, 1-26

Abstract: This paper proposes a virtual tool for load flow analysis in energy distribution systems of micro-grids. The solution is based on a low-cost measurement architecture, which entails low-voltage power measurements in each secondary substation and a voltage measurement at the beginning of the medium voltage (MV) feeder. The proposed virtual tool periodically queries these instruments to acquire the measurements. Then, it implements a backward–forward load flow algorithm, to evaluate the power flow in each branch and the voltage at each node. The virtual tool performances are validated using power measurements acquired at the beginning of each MV feeder. The uncertainties on each calculated quantity are also evaluated starting from the uncertainties due to the used measurement instruments. Moreover, the influence of the line parameter uncertainties on the evaluated quantities is also considered. The validated tool is useful for the online analysis of power flows and also for planning purposes, as it allows verifying the influence of future distributed generator power injection. In fact, the tool is able to off-line perform the load flow calculation in differently distributed generation scenarios. The micro-grid of Favignana Island was used as a case study to test the developed virtual tool.

Keywords: smart grid; power system; distributed generation; micro-grid; load flow; measurement uncertainties (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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