Hosting Capacity in NEPLAN

The increasing penetration of distributed generation (DG) requires optimal adaptation and planning of distribution systems in order to achieve cost-effective development of power grids for the future.

Is the distribution grid able to supply the necessary load power for the increasing number of consumption points and implementation of distributed generation?

Hosting Capacity (HC) is defined as the maximum capacity of new power generation and new energy consumption that the power grid can support without being modified, while guaranteeing its reliability and the quality of the power supplied.

Why is this important?

If the offer of DG in the power system exceeds the demand, there will be a malfunction of the grid. DG connection in distribution systems impacts system efficiency and power quality. The most important power quality events that have repercussions are: harmonics, flicker, voltage variations, voltage sags or swells.

Analysis of the impact of electric vehicles has focused on the grid's capacity to cover the demand and on the power limits per grid and location.

How to avoid these consequences?

Multiple criteria such as voltage, current, power quality and protection must be taken into account in the Hosting Capacity calculation, the most important criterion to be considered is voltage. So, Voltage limits, including overvoltage, voltage unbalance and voltage deviation are considered as evaluation criteria for defining the maximum allowable capacity.

NEPLAN can calculate the nominal power and optimal location of charging stations, simulate multiple grid loads using stochastic methods, detect critical or invalid ranges of installed capacity, and identify grid bottlenecks.

The image shows the results of multiple scenarios simulations, this gives an idea of the total capacity that can be integrated and the number of random scenarios that present overvoltage problems.

With the Hosting Capacity module, NEPLAN provides answers to the questions What is the maximum total power that a network can support? and What is the maximum power that can be connected a specific location?

NEPLAN offers a solution for network planning with the integration of electric mobility and DG using a combination of power flow analysis, load profiles and hosting capacity.