Multi-criteria placement and capacity selection of solar power plants in the “Baikal-Khövsgöl” Cross-Border Recreation Area

The problem of power supply to remote consumers in the “Baikal-Khövsgöl” Cross-Border Recreation Area, associated with the high length and low reliability of power lines is discussed. The assessment of the modes of the power distribution grid showed that the introduction of new consumers in this territory will lead to unacceptable voltage deviations, even taking into account the installation of reactive power compensating devices. Since the area under consideration has a high solar energy potential, it is advisable to use distributed solar generation. The choice of locations and capacities of solar power plants is a multi-criteria optimization problem. Four criteria are proposed: total voltage deviation, total active power losses, reliability and capital costs for construction. An algorithm for multi-criteria optimizationis developed and implemented as a program in the MATLAB, which consists in sequential verification of the feasibility of installing additional power of solar power plants at the consumers of each of the substations under consideration. For each variant, the electric grid mode is assessed using the Power system analysis toolbox program. Solutions for the choice of locations and capacities of solar power plants are obtained, providing high scores by criteria in accordance with the given criteria importance coefficients