Uma avaliação de impactos da geração distribuída e do desbalanceamento de carga nas perdas técnicas.

Abstract

Distributed generation (DG) and load imbalance between phases are factors that alter technical losses in distribution networks. DG and load imbalance change the current distribution in the network, with a consequent change in the value of the currents in the branches. The changes caused in distribution are still little explored, despite having a direct impact on the calculation of technical losses and operational efficiency. The measurement of impact of the changes can be assessed by the difference in energy lost per section of the network. In this work, a quantitative evaluation of a real low-voltage network was carried out and used as a basis for simulated case studies in OpenDSS with different amounts of DG units and allocation of loads per phase. A concentration factor was defined to evaluate the distribution characteristic of DG in the network, as well as an unbalance factor between phases. The base case, without DG or unbalanced loads, has 10.41% of technical losses. The worst cases (+3.05%) of losses corresponded to the high concentration of DG and the best cases (-1.54%) were the cases of more uniform distribution of DG. In the cases studied, it was possible to observe that DG can be aggravating or mitigating technical losses. Regarding load imbalance, a gradual increase in the level of losses (+0.2%) was observed, even for larger imbalances of 16% between phases. For the studied network, the simulation results show that the insertion of DG can have a greater impact on technical losses than the simple load imbalance. Based on a financial evaluation method created at work, it was possible to observe a potential return on load management and DG.