Congestion management in smart grids using virtual power plants as flexible resources

摘要

As global demand for energy continues to grow and electricity assets are aging, one of the challenges is to meet the energy demand without causing too much stress on the power system. Congestion occurs when transmission capacity is not sufficient to accommodate system constraints to meet the energy demand. This study aims to investigate how a virtual power plant (VPP), including solar photovoltaic (PV) generation and energy storage capacity, can help to alleviate congestion. In this paper, locational marginal price (LMP) is used as economic indicator to quantity the cost of congestion, the difference in LMP between two connected buses indicates the degree of congestion. After identifying the congested lines, a power flow sensitivity analysis is carried out to identify nodes that have the most impacts on those congested lines. Solar PV and energy storage is optimally installed in those nodes to manage congestion. The effectiveness of the proposed method is tested on IEEE 14-bus system.