An Optimal Placement Model for Electric Springs in Distribution Networks

Abstract

The electric spring (ES) is a type of demand-response technology that improves the voltage quality of critical loads (CLs) in a distribution network. This paper, proposes an optimal placement model to determine the optimal placement locations and power ratings of ESs in a radial distribution network. The total voltage deviations with respect to the buses are proposed as the placement criteria. The non-critical loads (NCLs) with ESs are extended to power-electronics-based loads, and they are modeled as constant-power-type loads. The operation characteristics of the individual ESs are investigated and linearized. On the basis of the linearized Distflow equations, an optimal placement model is proposed for ESs in a radial distribution network. The proposed model is solved as a mixed integer linear program problem. As per the case-study results, the installation locations and power ratings of the ESs are mainly associated with the network topology, weight coefficients of the voltage deviations on different buses, and bus loads in the radial distribution network.