Distribution Network Performance Management for emerging load in Urban Area Case Study of Balaju Distribution Center

Abstract

The study focuses on the technical performance analysis of a typical distribution network at a rapidly urbanizing area under the current scenario, future scenario, and distribution network optimization. The Control area in this research is Tarkeshwor Municipality, Nepal, which lies in the outer stretch of Kathmandu, representing the urbanizing loads. In this research, the electric cooking load has been added to the forecasted load up to ten years from now, representing emerging technology as well load that adds to peak load in the daily load curve of the control area. The placement of reactive power suppliers as distributed generation in various distribution network branches is done in this research as an optimization tool that exhibits improved power quality and reliability with the forecasted load. The peak load along with baseload was found to be increased to 21.94 MVA at the end of the tenth year, including targetted electric cooking load. This increment of load at the feeder increases the loss significantly, and the voltage profile is also out of the limits, which are improved by the optimal placement of distributed generation on optimal buses. Similarly the financial contributions to be made by the utility to manage the forecasted load along with the investment to be made for electric cooking load has been analyzed. It is believed that the analysis and discussion in this research will be helpful to the policymakers as well as the electric utility for planning the supply and utilization pattern of electricity in the future