Power Quality Enhancement of Smart Reconfigurable Grids by Integrating Renewable Energy Sources

Electronic-based loads such as computers, smart phones, etc. are fast expanding all around the world. On the other hand, the aging of distribution systems to deliver power to these users results in a low quality of power. To this aim, in this study, renewable energy sources (RESs) connected to networks by smart inverters, are allocated to support networks' weakness related to harmonic distortion, resulting in delivering high-quality power to customers. In other words, solar and wind energy resources are optimally allocated in reconfigurable distribution networks with the aim of minimizing total harmonic distortion (THD). Due to the nonlinearity of the problem, the proposed methodology is then optimized by using the differential evolution algorithm (DEA). The simulation results from a typical 33-bus IEEE test network demonstrate that network reconfiguration in the presence of renewable energies with the interface of smart inverters has an active role in THD compensation, loss minimization, etc.