Energy Distribution and Generation

This document provides an overview of energy distribution and generation, focusing on distributed generation technologies such as wind turbines, solar photovoltaic systems, fuel cells, and micro-turbines. It discusses the impact of distributed generation on the distribution system and explores the technical effects it has. The document also covers the barriers and encouragements to adopting distributed generation in the UK, along with an overview of relevant policies and regulations.

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Distribution Energy Generation
(By)
The Name of the Class (Course)
Professor (Tutor)
The Name of the School (University)
The City and State where it is located
The Date

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Distribution Electricity Generation Definition
Generally, Distributed Generation points at grid-connected or stand-alone modular, small devices
for generating electricity which is found close to the consumption point. The important definition
lies in characterizing the DG technologies according to the technology sizes of power
production, the application and the location of the device used (Pratap et al. 2018). These DG
systems are found near power demand areas such as the consumer side, and not on the
transmission network (Gharehpetian & Mohammad, 2017).
Hence, DG entails numerous technologies for use which include non-renewable and renewable
energy sources as shown in table 1 below.
Technology Description
Wind Uses large wind turbines able to directly convert wind energy to
electricity.
Solar Photovoltaic Often roof-mounted panels able to produce electricity from
daylight.
Micro-Hydro These are instruments that are able to tap flowing water’s power,
converting it to electricity.
Micro-Wind These are smaller wind turbines that are able to produce
electricity mostly roof-mounted.
Waste/Biomass Their installation has arranged of 100kW to 18MWth.

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The DG Technologies Used
1. Wind Turbines
The wind turbines connected to the grid are effective sources of DG which are operational at
variable or nearly constant speed with coupling to induction motors for power production
(Nezihi et al. 2015). Induction generators, squirrel cage type, are tapped to the power system
using a power electronic interface like in the diagram below.
Fig 1 (Rugthaicharoencheep & Auchariyamet, 2012) connecting induction generators, squirrel
cage type to AC grid
2. Photovoltaic System
This module has an unregulated DC source of power requiring treatment and conditioning before
making a connection to the power systems (Mahmoud & AL-Sunni, 2015). The output of the PV
array is connected to a chopper to produce maximum power tracking as shown in the diagram
below:

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Fig 2 (Rugthaicharoencheep & Auchariyamet, 2012) Connecting PV to AC grid
These energy forms are renewable. Additionally, they can improve the service reliability by
decreasing the system’s outage numbers with avoidance of extending lines of power to remote
areas (Sioshansi, 2014).
3. Fuel Cell
This is a device generating electricity through a chemical reaction. Fuel cells have 2 electrodes,
an anode and a cathode (Staffell et al. 2015). The electricity is produced at the electrodes and an
electrolyte carrying electrically charged particles. Additionally, there is a catalyst that hastens the
electrodes’ reactions. Mostly hydrogen becomes the basic fuel combined with oxygen. These
fuels produce fewer pollutant products. They produce DC power that should be converted into
A.C with the use of DC/AC inverter (Abu-Rub et al. 2014). The DC output is changed to A.C
using the inverter to the grid as shown below:
Fig 3 (Rugthaicharoencheep & Auchariyamet, 2012) connecting fuel to AC grid

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4. Micro-Turbines
Usually, these are gas-fired micro-turbines ranging from 25kW – 1 MW for electricity
generation. They operate at high speed suing airfoil bearings (Wenzhong, 2015). The output of
this generator is A.C with high frequency thus not advisable for direct tapping to power systems.
It requires a power electronic interface. Diode rectifiers rectify the generated voltage and a
DC/AC voltage source inverter is used in getting a utility-grade injection proper for tapping into
grids as shown below:
Fig 4 (Rugthaicharoencheep & Auchariyamet, 2012) connecting micro-turbine to AC grid
The Distributed Generation Technologies penetration as in the UK
The electricity system used in the UK is majorly a conventional, central generation that supplies
energy through a nationwide network. The used DG systems generate less than 10% of the
overall supplied electricity. The use of DG systems is affected by barriers to adopting or
encouraging DG implementation.
1. Barriers to DG adoption
The UK government produced a joint report that defines the four major barriers to DG adoption.
To begin with, the technologies used in DG systems are mostly less attractive commercial than
their alternatives due to their long payback periods, high capital cost and inadequate payments
when exporting excess power to the grid (Guo et al. 2015).

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Secondly, the potential users find it tough to access the DG information as well as understanding
the available incentives. Thirdly, the aspects of the industrial structure of electricity in the UK
prove difficult for connecting and operating small generators (Bansal, 2017). These include
complex licensing systems applicable to supplying and generating power to the network. Lastly,
there are regulatory barriers existing as the planning process and community development
inhibiting initiatives linked with new housings (Mora & Squillero, 2015).
2. Encouragements to adopting DG
The government of the UK has used numerous policies serving as promotions for adopting
ranges of DG technology (Arefi et al. 2018). The Renewable Obligation is felt when the UK
government directs its policies to renewable initiatives (large scale). The scheme used in the RO
has the operators receiving Renewable Obligation Certificates in every MWh production of
electricity, categorized into ‘bands’ (Rajakaruna et al. 2014). This categorical move provides
additional incentives for emerging investors, hence, increasing the support for the developed Dg
technologies as shown in the table below:

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Band Level of Support
depicted as ROCs/MWh
Technologies
Established 1 0.25 Landfill gas
Established 2 0.5 Crop biomass and sewage gas
Reference 1.0 Hydro-electric, onshore wind, energy crop
co-firing
Post-demonstration 1.5 CHP energy crop co-firing, biomass
Emerging 2.0 Tidal stream, fuels from pyrolysis,
anaerobic digestion and gasification,
offshore wind
Other UK policies are described below.
The Climate Change Levy which effectively taxes industrial, commercial and public sector
energy use allowing revenue recycling hence a reduction NI costs of employers (Glynn, et al.,
2014). The CCL has the main aim that encourages businesses to efficiently use energy and lower
the emission of greenhouse gases (Arent & Zinaman, 2017).
The Carbon-Emission Reduction Target comes in place of the Energy Efficiency Commitment
(See, 2018). The obligation of CERT is to caution energy suppliers in reducing the emission of
CO2 by the residential customers. It also looks into both microgeneration and energy efficiency
measures.
The Low Carbon Building Programme is made up of two phases (van der Heijden, 2017). Phase
1 makes grants available for public and households, commercial and not-for-profit organizations.

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Phase 2 eases fund availability for microgeneration units installations by charitable and public
sectors, but not for commercial companies and households. The various technologies in use
include solar thermal, solar PV, biomass, ground source heat pumps and wind.
The VAT provides ‘energy savings’ relief directed at microgeneration development (Scott &
Ellis, 2017). Thus the VAT rate is cut down through this policy from the 17.5% standard to 5%.
The efficient measures energy are such as water turbines, solar PV, wind turbines and micro-
CHP.
Of course, there are more energy policies affecting the DG such as the Emission Trading Scheme
from the EU (Butzengeiger, 2018). This trading scheme is based on the carbon price for the
covered industries. Thus there is an improvement that I relative to the DG cost–competitiveness.
Technical effect on the Distribution system
The following are the various ways of technical effects:
a. Flow of power
A flow of power in the ancient radial network distribution is not directly from the user's source
(Abu-Rub et al. 2014). Where DG is initiated to the distribution system, it changes the network's
structure and the flow of power to loads and not unidirectional from the bus substation. Complex
and reflux changes in voltage could also be experienced.
b. Distribution Planning System
The systems of the distributed network contain a number of nodes. High volumes of DG nodes
are multiplied by the system making it hard to determine the suitable layout network program
from all the network structures available (Arefi et al. 2018). Energy diversification and the class

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of DG units portrays it as an emergency requirement to be dealt with and how to ensure there's a
reasonable structure of power while distributing network. It also addresses the issue of how
effectively use and coordinate different power types.
When the level of penetration of DG in the distribution network is high, it becomes the same as
the transmission network which is active (Bansal, 2017). It is therefore important for the
applicability of various ways of pricing to be put into consideration in regards to a distributed
network which are the transmission network's finding applications.
c. Islanding
DG is able to lower both the permanent and temporary distributed systems outages however, it
normally needs intentional islanding (Gharehpetian & Mohammad, 2017). Even though there is
the possibility of switching an area with DG on a different feeder without forming an island.
Normally, islands come about when part of the distributed system sustained by the DG
disconnects from the major substation upon the occurrence of a transient. One of the main
challenges associated with islanding often is that it is created by the occurrence of faults between
the substation and the DG. Many at times this will lead to the opening of relays during different
durations to eliminate fault current that leads to the loss of voltage and phase synchronization.
d. Loss of power
In most cases but not always, the DG can aid in minimizing the flow of currents inside the feeder
thus leads to loss of power reduction. Loosing of the electrical line happens upon the flow of
currents via distribution systems (Nezihi et al. 2015). The loss of magnitude is dependent on the
resistance of the line and the quantity of current flow. Line loss, therefore, may be lowered by
decreasing either resistance or current line or both. When using DG for energy production to the

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load locally, line loss may be decreased as a result of low current flow in some network sections.
However, depending on the capacity, network topology, location and the load quantity size
relativity, among other factors can lead to the reduction or increase of losses.
The effects of DG units in regards to the loss of energy is based on particular features of the
network which includes topology, distribution demand, behaviour, the relative position of
generators and if at all their production is variable or firm. Using such complexities in an
optimized framework to minimize the loss of energy is very difficult and has not been fully
addressed (Guo et al. 2015).
e. Quality of power
A lot of generators are designed to offer load backup power when power interruptions are
experienced. However, in some circumstances, DG can increase the rate of interruptions.
Additionally, there exist concerns about harmonics in relation to inverters and rotating machines
however, inverters have little association with the new technologies (Staffell et al. 2015).
The increase in power quality interruptions is caused by the extension of DG connected to the
grid. Such challenges require maximum attention (Gharehpetian & Mohammad, 2017).
f. Reliability
It is one of the most vital features of the power system that has sufficient assessment and
security. They are both impacted by the DG implementation in an electrical distribution system.
Many resources that recover loads have an impact on the interruptions, reliability indices and
momentary or sustained interruption frequency, based on the DG's mode of operation
(Wenzhong, 2015).

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As a result of complexities in every case, researchers have evaluated reliability under various
assumptions (Rajakaruna et al. 2014). Using the recently explained impact factor, for the explicit
equations, are suggested for any situations containing versatile systems. In this case, the
parameters are defined as a time function.
g. Regulating Voltage
Power injections in the DG can change the normal power flow direction in radial distribution
networks which can cause the rise in voltage (van der Heijden, 2017). The effects of voltage rise
impact on the DG’s maximum capacity which may be installed to a distribution system is shown
in the figure below using a simple network. The network consists of two feeders as follows; one
containing load and DG while the other has one load lumped at the end. The supply of network is
from the substation on load changing transformers (OLTC). Bus 2 voltage (V2) may be
approximated with the following calculations:
Whereby V1 , V2 = bus 1 & 2 voltage
X, R = admittance and resistance
Qn, Pn = reactive and active power of generation
QL, PL = reactive and active power of the load
QC = reactive power capacitor

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The simple equation (1) may be applied in the qualitative analysis of the relation between the
quantity of generation and the volts at bus 2 that may be installed to the distribution network and
also the effect of the alternative control acts.
Fig 5 (Rugthaicharoencheep & Auchariyamet, 2012) Simple voltage rise system
Distributed Generation System Economic Impacts
There are economic impacts that come with the integration of DG systems. These impacts
include;
a) Support schemes’ efficiency
There are numerous goals that promote installation of DG systems such as reducing the
greenhouse gas emission, reduction of dependence to imported fuels hence higher supply
security and promoting specific technology development (Li et al. 2015). Additionally, DG
systems establish new industries creating employment.
b) Financial Value analysis
DG systems financially affect business distribution. The business distributions can be assessed
using the linear value function. Costs caused by DG systems are obtained by calculating the unit

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set costs as per the regulatory policy details. The unit costs depend on the plant’s standard costs.
For example $/km cable together with the line’s cost and $/unit switchgear’s costs with relevant
regulatory aspects.
c) Power markets regulation
Power market regulation has a common aim everywhere with a corrected deviation from the
schedule. This depends on the national market designs where actors lastly can rectify their
schedules looking at other markets. Generally, there is an assumption that varying supply sources
come with increasing demand for power regulation due to errors from meteorological forecasts.
Conclusion
Generally, this paper explains the FACTs mechanisms of effective and simple energy
consumption where energy will be preserved. Among them include: optimized system: for
instance production lowering the supply of chilled water by 10 C lowers the efficiency of the
system by 4 %. Distribution works in system optimization for instance costs for electrical
pumping, that is distribution flow kept constant, in cooling systems can be responsible for more
than 7 – 17% of the total energy used. Lastly, in optimized systems, dissipation is one way of
FACTS system implementation so that when temperatures of the room increases by 10C the
consumption of energy increases by between 6 to 11% yearly in heating systems.

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