Summary:
The promotion of the use of renewable energy sources (RES) and combined heat and power (CHP) at European level has led to increasing penetration levels of distributed generation (DG). Work Package 4 of the IMPROGRES project aims at computing the economic impact that the integration of growing
shares of DG in several areas with high potential for the installation of this type of generation may have on overall system costs in general and each specific cost component related to the supply of electricity in particular. The European Electricity Directive (European Communities, 2003) defines DG as generation plants connected to the distribution systems.
Report D5, corresponding to the work developed within WP4, has first defined a suitable methodology to compute the impact of DG on system costs. Cost factors deemed to be affected by DG are distribution, since the size of distribution assets can no longer depend only on flows caused by peak demand; generation, since DG will replace part of the former production of conventional generation and the generation mix will change as well; balancing, due to the unpredictability and variability of some DG technologies and external cost, since emission of different polluting substances are significantly lower when electricity is produced using clean renewable technologies.
In order to assess the impact on these cost components of DG, several penetration levels of DG, measured as the ratio of DG in each area to local contracted demand, have been defined. Then, we have determined the evolution of the different types of costs with increasing shares of DG, when all other aspects of the system functioning and development are kept unchanged and equal to those corresponding to a specific point in time. This set of system variables that are kept constant are known as the background or storyline where DG impact is measured. Two different storylines have been considered, one corresponding to the year 2008 and another one corresponding to he expected situation in the year 2020.
Areas where the installation of DG is considered have a high potential for the integration of DG/RES and are located in Spain, the Netherlands and Germany. These areas have different characteristics in terms of the type of load existing in the area (rural/urban, etc.), the type of generation installed or expected to be installed and the penetration levels considered, as well as unit costs and other parameters of design of the grid. The area in Spain is located in Aranjuez. It is an urban and semi-urban area with about 60.000 customers and mainly wind and CHP capacity currently installed. In the future, PV capacity is also expected. DG is concentrated in a few specific places. Up to 35% DG penetration levels are expected for 2020. High voltage, medium voltage and low voltage distribution networks are considered. The area in the Netherlands is a semi-urban area with 80.000 customers and very large in size (675 km2). It is located in Kop van Noord Holland. DG installed and expected is mainly wind and CHP and DG penetration levels, which are already very high, will probably reach 200% of the contracted load in 2020. Only high voltage and medium voltage distribution networks are considered.
This entire grid must be built underground. The area in Germany is located in Mannheim. This is a residential area with about 6000 customer where generation expected is PV and micro-CHP located within the same households of consumers. DG penetration levels are nowadays negligible but are
expected to reach about 30% of contracted load in 2020. Only medium voltage and low voltage distribution networks are considered.
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IIT Project: IMPROGRES (IMPROGRES)
Funding entity: Comisión Europea. Intelligent Energy-Europe (IEE)
Publication date: 04-09-2009
IIT-09-091I
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