Distributed generation planning based on the distribution company's and the DG owner's profit maximization

Summary In recent years, Distributed Generation (DG) has been utilized in electric power networks increasingly. DG units can affect the system operational conditions in different ways such as voltage profile improvement, amending voltage stability, reliability enhancement, securing power market, etc. if they are managed properly. Otherwise, they may have undesirable impacts on technical issues of power grids. A lot of studies have been done on various aspects of control and operation of DG units to find the optimal placement, sizing and also the proper technology of them. This paper proposes a novel comprehensive economic method for planning DG units which considers both the Distribution Company's (DisCo) and the DG Owner's (DGO) profits simultaneously. Multi-objective particle swarm optimization technique is used to simulate many case studies on the IEEE 33-bus distribution test system and finally find the best solution for the placement, size and contract price of the generated power of DGs. The proposed methodology not only considers operational aspects such as power loss reduction, voltage profile and stability improvement and reliability enhancement, but also leads to an accurate analysis which satisfies both the DisCo's and the DGO's economic viewpoints. Finally, an encouragement to invest more on DG technologies is proposed based on the gained results. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.