How to take meteorological and economic uncertainties into account when planning and developing medium voltage systems

The optimization of the future development of an MV system requires long and medium-term planning to determine the most suitable investment policy. Within the framework of this policy the reinforcements will only be executed after a short-term investment decision study in which the hypotheses relative to load growth are brought up to date. The network reinforcement schedule proposed in the planning study approaches the true optimum when the actual investments are made approximately at the dates set forward by this study. The authors present a simple probabilistic planning method which takes into consideration the meteorological and economic uncertainties which can affect demand forecasts. The approach is based on the adaptation of investment schedules derived from average assumptions that takes the extreme meteorological and economic events into account which could occur during the period when a reinforcement is under construction