New and existing developments are being promoted with the aim of achieving zero carbon communities. This challenges traditional distribution network design in a number of ways:

• There is a requirement to absorb large penetrations of micro generation on to the Low Voltage (LV) network

• Other low carbon conservation measures applied in the same areas means that local generation could exceed demand at certain periods of the day.

Western Power Distribution would like to support such low carbon initiatives by modifying network design to both minimise network losses while maximising the amount of generation that can be accommodated without infringing fault level or statutory voltage limitations.

Network modelling of real sites will be compared with the theoretical study on the Loughborough network being carried out by Loughborough University, Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology (CREST) using their three phase load-flow software. WPD are providing network data and monitoring actual load and voltage profiles to support this work.

Certain LCTs will substitute electricity for alternative fuel vectors at the domestic level and a further project phase will incorporate these Low Carbon Technologies (LCTs) such as heat pumps, electric vehicles and also likely domestic climate change adaptation technologies such as air conditioning into the network model.

Objectives

Development of a distribution network model onto which different types and penetrations of Distributed Generation (DG) and other LCTs can be incorporated to understand the effects which could be encountered on real networks.