Private Investors Participation in Long-Term Distribution Network Planning

Distribution network planning is one of the challenging issues for the network planner. However, in recent years the integration of renewable energy resources has increased the planning complexity. On the other hand, the high investment cost of these resources is a significant barrier for the distribution companies. Therefore, in this paper, a distribution network planning framework to assess the private investor's participation is proposed. The proposed model includes two layers where in the first layer a common network planning according to different levels of load reduction is performed, and then in the second layer, the optimum site and size of photovoltaic (PV) and energy storage system (ESS) as renewable resources is determined. Meanwhile, payback period years as an economic index is considered to evaluate the profitability of the plan from the investor’s point of view. The proposed model is tested and implemented to a 54-bus distribution test system and the result illustrates the cooperation of utility and private investors in the long-term distribution network planning problem.