Abstract
There are three types of energy resources, namely, fossil fuels, nuclear energy
and renewable energy. Renewable energy is divided into five technologies which
are solar, hydropower, biomass, wind and tidal waves. The Middle East and
Africa are considered to have good solar irradiance. The Eastern Cape and
Western Cape provinces of South Africa have winds of annual average speeds of
about 1.6 metres per seconds.
Optimisation techniques are divided into classical and modern. Classical
optimisation techniques include linear, nonlinear, integer, geometric and dynamic
programming while modern optimisation includes genetic, ant colony, particle
swarm and simulated annealing. Connecting distributed generators to a power
system network can impact on protection, stability and power quality on the
system. Three control functions that used to control distributed generators are
voltage, power factor and reactive. One control function can be activated at a
time.
This work investigated the optimal placement of a distributed generator (DG) on
a medium voltage radial feeder. Simulated annealing optimisation was used to
find an optimal bus of connecting of connecting a distributed generator on a
radial feeder. The optimisation technique was applied to a power flow Matlab
program which incorporates Newton-Raphson method. DigSilent PowerFactory
simulations software was used to validate the results which were obtained from
the Matlab program.
The results obtained from both the Matlab tool and DigSilent PowerFactory
indicated that the optimal bus for a 14-bus radial feeder loaded at 5 MVA while
using a 1.5 MW DG is bus 11. This is because connecting the distributed
generator at bus 11 resulted in maximum loss reduction on the feeder. The
Matlab tool proposed in this study can be used to find the optimal point where a
distributed can be connected on a medium voltage radial feeder.
M.Ing. (Electrical and Electronic Engineering)