Distribution Systems Planning and Analysis Framework for Indian Feeders: Preprint

Integration of distributed energy resources (DER) such as photovoltaics, electric vehicles (EVs) and battery energy storage systems (BESS) is expected to rapidly increase in distribution systems in India. These grid edge resources can have adverse impacts on the grid and can provide additional revenue streams as well. To mitigate these impacts distribution planning and analysis is required. So this paper presents a framework which can be used to complete all steps involved in distribution planning and analysis. This framework uses data in the same format as is readily available with Indian utilities and processes it to generate detailed feeder models and loading profiles. This framework already includes multiple DER use cases such as peak shaving for BESS and EV demand modelling and can be easily extended to simulate a number of additional use cases. All of these use cases can be simulated in parallel for multi-year time series simulations using an integrated command line interface. A suit of grid readiness metrics are then evaluated for each simulation to determine required network upgrades and associated costs.