Volume 55

Geospatial Analysis of a Medium Voltage Distribution Network Expansion Planning Fábio Castro, Buno Canizes, João Soares, Zita Vale

Abstract

The current transition toward carbon neutrality creates several previously unforeseen challenges. The intermittent and unpredictable nature of renewable energy can potentially be harmful regarding important factors such as flexibility. The most recent report by the International Energy Agency guarantees an absolute need to double infrastructure equipment by 2030, and they also predict that the system flexibility will need to almost double by the same time. Thus, planning network expansions appropriately is key. This paper will focus on the geospatial analysis of terrain according to several environmental, soil, location, social, and technical constraints. This task is often overlooked in theoretical network planning papers, but it is extremely crucial to showcase practical applicability. For an exposition case study, an excerpt of a real 180-bus network in Portugal will be used and analyzed for a potential expansion.

Keywords Distribution Network Expansion, Geospatial Analysis, Geospatial Visualization, Landscape Analysis, Natural Constraints, Optimal Planning