Load variation impact on allowable output power of distributed generator with loss consideration

As more renewable energy is being utilized, the number of distributed generators (DGs) is continuously increasing. In general, DGs provide considerable benefits from both economic and engineering aspects. Determination of the appropriate DG capacity is generally performed under certain operating conditions. However, the system demand varies with the time of the day. Therefore, appropriate DG output power, taking into account distribution feeder loss reduction, also changes over time. This paper investigates the impact of load variation on determining the appropriate DG output power for feeder loss reduction purposes. The branch current decomposition loss allocation based method is further developed to determine an appropriate DG output power taking into account customer load profiles. It is anticipated that the proposed method would help planning engineers to determine the suitable DG power output to be fed into their systems in a short period of time. The obtained results also show that the feeder loss can be managed effectively with appropriate output power of the DG. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.