There is a continued focus on advancing and diversifying the US electric energy sector. Some federal and state initiatives have been imposed to: reduce system peak load, increase the amount of renewable generators, and increase the number of demand response participants. In distribution systems, various combinations of network devices (e.g. capacitors, distributed generators, loads) are used to achieve a reduction in peak load. Historically, capacitors have been installed and employed by system operators for reactive power compensation, voltage regulation, power factor correction and energy loss reduction.

 

In this thesis, capacitor placement and control sequences for voltage spread reduction in distribution systems is considered. Additionally, direct load control participants and photovoltaic generators are included in the control problem in order to investigate impacts of federal and state peak load reduction goals.