A Stochastic Methodology to Determine Reinforcement Cost of Power Distribution Grid for Integrating Increasing Share of Renewable Energies and Electric Vehicles

Abstract

Increasing number of installed renewable energies (REs) has revealed many congestions within the distribution grid. In addition, the number of electric vehicles (EV s) are expected to grow rapidly in near future. Both situations increase requirements for reinforcement arrangements. Consequently, the demand for concepts and tools estimating the reinforcement dimensions and costs on regional and national level has arisen. However, challenges in terms of complexity, heterogeneity and data availability of the grid impede the design of the models. This paper presents a stochastic methodology to quantify the costs and a comparison to existing studies. Results indicate that total required lengths for distribution grid line expansion over all voltage levels of the German power grid case and their total cost deviate moderate to renowned methods for REs. Furthermore, increasing share of EV s lead to much higher grid reinforcement requirements than REs and Voltage Regulating Distribution Transformer can reduce REs grid line expansion costs dramatically.