Intelligent Day-Ahead Scheduling for Distribution Networks With High Penetration of Distributed Renewable Energy Sources

The concept of unidirectional power delivery, which is as old as the power system itself, is ceasing to be true in many distribution networks today. This is due to a massive integration of Distributed Renewable Energy Sources into these networks, causing local production and consumption of power, and sometimes even leading to power being fed back to transmission networks. These reverse flows present a great challenge for Distribution System Operators who can no longer afford to control and supervise their networks in a too passive, or reactive manner. Indeed, there is a need for them to evolve and take into account the new possibilities brought about by the integration of more advanced communication and control systems, in managing their networks. Most distribution network optimization methods have considered the network conditions to be static, providing an optimal solution for only a “snapshot” of the network. Different research studies have considered multi-temporal optimization, but have either not considered flexibilities like reconfiguration, which are available for exploitation, or have assumed for example that distributed generators are dispatchable in nature