Enhancing the distribution feeder capacity through energy storage

The distribution feeders often gets overload under peak power demands. This situation is generally countered by load shading, which leads to financial losses to utilities and individual users. This paper presents the new methodology to support the real and reactive power demand through energy storage (ES) to avoid the load shading situation. The compensation of real / reactive power not only provides the voltage profile improvement but also ensures the sustain power to the consumers. A control scheme incorporated also maintains the unity power factor on source side. This relieves the existing distribution network from the extra reactive loading hence the line is having extra capacity for real power transfer to its maximum thermal limit. This additional capacity availability adds more customer base to justify the energy storage investment. The operational features are presented through a simulation of a realistic urban feeder data. The financial analysis is also presented to justify the energy storages with the distribution networks.