Alleviating Power Line Congestion Through the Use of a Renewable Generation

Author

Adeiah James, Prairie View A&M University

Date of Award

5-2023

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Degree Discipline

Electrical Engineering

Abstract

As the United States' energy demand has grown substantially within the past few decades, the reliability of its electric grids has become even more pertinent. With millions of customers relying on having consistent electric power to fulfill their daily routines and necessary operations, electric power transmission congestion, or the overloading of the electric power transmission network, can be very costly and detrimental to the reliability of the network and the environment. Therefore, it is imperative to identify and implement methods of optimally controlling the power flows to limit transmission line congestion.

Throughout recent decades, there has been an ever-increasing penetration of Renewable Energy Generation in the power grid. However, unlike in the past, where fossil fuel generating plants were mostly located in remote areas, and in the proximity of the source of energy, the most common of the renewable generations, such as solar power systems, are haphazardly sited close to the loads. This is due to the fact that energy from the sun can be harnessed almost everywhere. This unplanned siting of renewable generating systems aggravates the power distribution lines congestion that already exists due to the power distribution deregulation. This thesis presents a procedure that takes advantage of utilization and proper placement of Photovoltaic (PV) power systems to alleviate power line congestion. In this procedure, the base

caseload flow, without the solar generating system, is performed on the distribution network. And the bus with the lowest voltage is identified; this low-voltage bus is indicative of congestion in the lines connecting the identified bus. A PV power system is then tied to that bus; the capacity of the PV generation is varied heuristically to determine the optimality that mitigates the congestion on the lines. The procedure is followed to test a 9-bus IEEE power system, and the results are presented.

Keywords: Congestion management; Power line congestion; Renewable energy generation; Transmission lines

Committee Chair/Advisor

Penrose Cofie

Committee Member

Charlie Tolliver

Committee Member

Justin Foreman

Committee Member

Annamalai Annamalai

Publisher

Prairie View A&M University

Rights

Date of Digitization

6/29/2023

Contributing Institution

John B Coleman Library

City of Publication

Waller

MIME Type

Application/PDF

Recommended Citation

James, A. (2023). Alleviating Power Line Congestion Through the Use of a Renewable Generation. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.pvamu.edu/pvamu-theses/1519