Impacts of future residential electricity demand and storage systems on ‘classic’ LV-network design

Distribution networks are not standardized designed to face developments related to the energy transition towards a more sustainable future and current normalized network design rules have not yet implemented these developments. Therefore, this paper investigated and quantified the developments of photovoltaic (PV)-systems and heat pumps (HPs) in the residential sector. Furthermore, the application of electrical storage systems as an alternative for conventional network expansion has been investigated. Methods to model households at individual level are discussed in this paper for the purposes of evaluating the integration of PV-systems and HPs and applying distributed energy storage within LV networks. The paper demonstrated that current LV-network design assumptions are insufficient regarding these expected developments. Multiple storage locations in a LV network have been evaluated and discussed by using storage strategies that focus on reducing transformer loading. Also utilization of storage capacity is discussed.