Project Title: Customer-oriented Planning Strategies for Active Distribution Systems
Project Summary: This project aims to develop customer-oriented planning strategies for planning active distribution systems. The trend in distribution system technology development shows that more and more distributed energy resources (DER) with different ownership will be deployed in the next ten years, making the traditionally passive system active.
This project will first develop new load forecast method with a focus on the forecasting of the penetration of customer-owned DERs based on location, economic incomes, and technology adoption rates. Then, we will study the energy management strategies under difference rate and award programs. Specifically, we will address the uncertainties brought by human behaviors as well as the intermittent generation resources (primarily PVs). Stochastic optimization methods will be developed to replace the deterministic approach the planning engineers are currently use to drive the planning towards customer-oriented planning practice so that investment and expansion plans can be made considering a more diversified future scenarios. Probabilistic-based Indices such as harmonics, voltage stability, and system reliability can be derived to let the utility engineers know the trade-off between investment and possibility of violation of those indices. Data of DER penetration collected in Duke Energy systems will be used to develop, test and validate the developed methodologies.
University Team Members
Lead: David Lubkeman, NC State
Members: Ning Lu, NC State and Ramtin Hadidi, Clemson University
Industry Advisors: Andrew Kling, Duke Energy