Stochastic estimation of the contribution levels of customer operated distributed generation

A stochastic based algorithm is proposed to estimate the contribution levels of the customer operated distributed generation in the new structured distribution systems. The state of each distributed generation unit (on or off) and the duration of its on period are the two random parameters of interest. The state duration approach is employed to model the stochastic performance of the customer operated distributed generation units and to estimate their energy contribution to the system at any hour of the day. A mathematical expression that is valid for any number of customer operated distributed generation units is derived and applied to obtain the most probable number of operating units and their average operating hours for a typical distribution system involving several units. A typical distributed generation system case study is simulated and the results obtained are presented and discussed.