Simulation and Analysis of the Operation and Reconfiguration of a Medium Voltage Distribution Network in a Smart Grid Context in MATLAB Simulink

• Main Author: Van Waeyenberge, Alexander
• Publication Date: 2021
• Format: Report
• Language: eng
• Source: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Download full: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.22/18192
• topic: Medium voltage distribution network; Smart grid; Simulation; MATLAB; Simulink

This work will present a Medium Voltage Distribution Network that is operated as a Smart Grid. As the distribution infrastructure for electric energy ages and the share of EV’s and renewables increases, changes will have to be made to support the increasing power flows in the network. A more long-term solution than reinforcing the network with heavier cables is constructing an intelligent network that reacts to changing power flows inside the network and adapts accordingly to guarantee optimal functionality. External data from an optimisation algorithm is used to determine the switching behaviour. The network was modeled and analysed using a simulation software. If done correctly, a simulation can offer a lot of insight for only a fraction of the cost of constructing and testing the network in reality. MATLAB Simulink was used for the virtual modeling and analysis of the network. The main objective is to construct a model of the MVDN and use it to generate and analyse the power flows in the network to determine the plausibility of exploiting a similar network in an existing city. The models for each of the network components were developed and picked to combine them into a functioning network model based on the smart city’s topology. Simulating a smart grid is in essence not novel, but has not been done in Simulink before in this context. The hardest obstacle to overcome during the construction of the network model was finding a way to achieve the making and breaking of network connections in a way that Simulink could compute the network parameters correctly and in a timely manner. A whole section is dedicated to resolving these development issues. Following this, the results of the simulation regarding power flows and losses in the network are discussed. When it comes to the renewable generation implementation, the results showed promising results, even on days with low wind velocity the renewables aided in reducing the power demanded from the substation. The total generated power is compared with the total consumed power in the loads to find the grid losses. It became apparent very quickly that the grid losses were very high, up to 9.7%, which is a lot higher than the expected 2-6%. Overall the model showed promising results, as well as serving as a baseline for future works to improve upon.