Assessment of Neutral Voltages in Distribution Networks via Monte Carlo Simulation and Load Flow Independent Grounding Approximation

Abstract

The computation of neutral voltages in power systems via load flow algorithms and Monte Carlo simulation is a topic that is receiving increased attention in recent works due to growth in installed distributed generation. In this paper, a novel method is proposed for estimating neutral voltage probability density functions in terms of system grounding impedances and in the presence of stochastic distributed generation. The main advantage of the proposed method is that it does not require solving load flow for each set of possible grounding impedances. Instead, a single load flow is required for the entire set, whose results are then used for estimating neutral voltage as a function of grounding impedance via Y-bus inversion. A case study is carried out via simulation to validate the method. The obtained results suggest that the proposed method provides low estimation error and yields significant reduction in computational complexity with respect to the standard load flow-based method.

Keywords

• monte carlo methods
• estimation
• grounding
• power distribution
• distributed power generation