Determination of Solar Hosting Capacity: A Case Study in 33 kV Distribution Network of Province No. 1, Nepal
Date
2019-11
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Pulchowk Campus
Abstract
The case of utilities supplying energy to the consumers from centralized grid is shifting
owards decentralized generation where, power production is supplemented by local
distributed generations. With increase in attraction towards clean energy, such
generations are usually renewable energy sources. However, integrating renewable
energy sources to the power system often become troublesome due to unpredictable
output of such sources. It is essential to study the capability of the grid to withstand the
variations of these source before interconnecting them to the power system. Integration
of large amount of renewable energy is restricted by the system reserve margin and
operational characteristics of the system. The availability of Solar Insolation all around
he year makes Nepal suitable location for installation of Solar Photo Voltaic (PV)
Plant. This study is focused to determine the PV hosting capacity in power system
network of Province No. 1, Nepal which is dominated by 33 kV lines. Steady state load
low has been carried out with step increment in size of PV installed at two buses
namely Inaruwa and Duhabi at 33 kV. Time domain load flow of wet and dry season,
signifying excess and scarce generation in the power system has been performed.
Typical data of March is used for System parameters for dry season and of June for Wet
Season. Voltages at different weak buses improved after the integration of PV into the
system during wet and dry season. System loss increased after injection of PV beyond 30MWp.The line loading limit and system reserve margin were not violated for this
size. The financial analysis of the Grid tied Photo voltaic plant was carried out with
power purchase rate of NPR 7.30 per kilowatt- hour which gave internal rate of return
of 8.46%. To assess the effect of change in major variables upon the IRR of the project,
sensitivity analysis was performed by varying the investment, power purchase rate and
energy generation. The maximum value of IRR was found to be 11.50%, when the
capital investment was set to 0.85 times of actual value as well as minimum value of
IRR was found to be 5.63% when the energy generation was 0.85 times of actual value.
Description
The case of utilities supplying energy to the consumers from centralized grid is shifting
towards decentralized generation where, power production is supplemented by local
distributed generations.
Keywords
Citation
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN RENEWABLE ENERGY ENGINEERING