A power quality‐based framework for optimal siting and sizing of wind turbines by search space reduction via power losses and flicker emission sensitivity indices

Abstract

Abstract As a well‐established renewable energy resource, wind energy is being widely used in distribution networks. However, flicker emission produced by wind turbines (WTs) is one of the main disadvantages which may cause serious problems during the system operation. Power quality‐based optimal allocation (siting and sizing) of WTs is an appropriate way to mitigate the flicker emission. Since the planning issue is a high dimensional and complex optimization problem and optimization methods suffer from premature convergence, search space reduction may be an effective approach to optimally solve the allocation problem. Here, to determine the importance of the network buses, two indices, namely, power loss index (PLI) and flicker emission index (FEI) are introduced to determine the sensitivity of the network losses and flicker emission to allocate WT on each bus. Then, based on the proposed indices, a number of important buses are identified and the allocation problem is solved with respect to these buses. Over the case study, it can be drawn that optimal allocation of WTs considerably affects the flicker emission. Moreover, search space reduction is an efficient way to optimally solve the allocation problem.

Keywords

• flicker emission index
• power loss index
• power quality‐based allocation
• search space reduction
• wind turbine