Distribution System Support

Power losses are a strong indicator of grid’s overall power quality and efficiency. Reactive power injection techniques in key points of the distribution grid have reportedly been able to reduce power losses and improve power quality.

Installed iReact-MGCs are able to take full advantage of reactive power injection capabilities of both “smart” inverter technology of renewable energy sources and more conventional generators (diesel, hydro).

Given the available reactive power to be injected, the absolute minimum of power losses is reached through modern optimization methods.

In addition to the standalone automated management of the substation by the iReact units, dispersed iReact-MGCs can further optimize the overall operation of the substation. Switched capacitor banks can only compensate reactive power supply by discrete fractions of their total capacity.

iReact-MGCs utilize reactive power injection capabilities of their corresponding device (e.g. smart-inverter, generator, etc.) in real-time and flatten the reactive power supply in intermediate states of capacitor bank switching.

A typical distribution voltage profile tends to decline as the distance from the substation increases. iReact-MGCs exploit voltage’s inherent relation to reactive power and utilize available deliverable reactive power in real-time in order to maintain acceptable voltage at all points of the distribution grid.
VPR enables easy integration of new distributed generation sources to the grid, while avoiding the costly installation of new Volt/VAr control equipment (cap. banks, line voltage regulators, etc.).

A full cooperation with the substation’s iReact units is supported in the sense of preventing redundant or incorrect control actions of the installed voltage dependent equipment (OLTC).

iReact-Prognosis’ predictive capabilities are able to offer a simulated future state of the distribution grid, through real-time and historical measured substation data, while integrating the effect of past and current weather conditions for increased accuracy.

Based on the predicted datasets available, iReact-MGC units are used to apply a scheduled power generation profile on dispatchable distributed units that mitigates the negative effects of renewable energy intermittency, while preserving a cautiously calculated power reserve for prediction error handling.

Various short-term objectives are available for achieving optimized grid and substation performance, including unit commitment, minimization of OLTC’s tap changes, etc.