Business Cases for Assessing the Value of Active Operation in Distribution Planning

Modern planning tools for active distribution networks should integrate network operation practices in the set of feasible planning alternatives, adopting probabilistic calculations (to capture the uncertain behavior of demand and generation) as well as multi-objective approaches. However, despite the recognized importance of active network solutions, most utilities do not consider such concepts as viable alternatives in their planning processes. Thus, utilities largely follow traditional `fit and forget' planning approaches, i.e., only network reinforcements to cope with the worst case scenario. One of the reasons of this stagnation is the lack of ad hoc business cases that prove the benefits of active networks. Here, some business cases on real distribution networks have been prepared by using a novel planning tool to deal with all the uncertainties that characterize the future scenarios of distribution systems. (6 pages)