Assessing and mitigating the impact of the energy demand in 2030 on the Dutch regional power distribution grid

Abstract

This paper assesses the power capacity overload problem caused by new energy techniques on a large portion of the Alliander power distribution grid. Over 15,000 km of power cables and 7,000 transformers have been evaluated as part of this study. Many data sources have been combined to construct several detailed energy scenarios for predicting the energy demand in 2030. These scenarios have been converted into power load time series with a 15 minute interval. Using these detailed load profiles various emergent energy management techniques, such as power storage and load control, have been assessed for their reducing the impact of peak loads. In the worst case scenario in 2030 only 6% of the total number of transformers is overloaded. While the energy management techniques can significantly reduce these overload problems, the financial benefits of applying these techniques to reduce overload problems the next decade are limited.