Communication infrastructures to facilitate regional voltage control of active radial distribution networks

The increasing penetration of distributed generators into passive medium voltage (MV) power distribution networks could bring enormous challenges in network management. An ongoing UK EPSRC research project, AuRA-NMS (autonomous regional active network management system), aims to tackle this issue through devolving current centralised control functionalities at DNO (Distributed Network Operator)´s control centre to a set of networked regional controllers deployed across the power distribution network to carry out either autonomous or cooperative control. In this paper, by taking voltage control as an example, we investigate the communication infrastructures to facilitate regional control in 11 kV radial networks. Our study shows that current DNO´s SCADA are inadequate to support efficient regional control due to structural and communication capability constraints which calls for new communication infrastructures.