Development of a Cross-Voltage-Level Planning Approach for Automated Strategic Network Planning

This contribution presents a method for automated strategic network planning for electric distribution networks across voltage levels. Three approaches for cross-voltage-level planning using level-separate network-datasets are presented. Advantages and disadvantages for all approaches are compared. The approach of successive automated strategic network planning starting with the lower voltage level is selected. The contribution then describes the underlying method and its implementation into two existing software solutions. The implementation is then tested by performing strategic network planning for two network areas with medium- and low-voltage networks from a German distribution system operator. The emerging results show that cross-voltage-level planning leads to a significant reduction of reinforcement expenses for both network areas. The contribution concludes that using the presented approach could lead to lower estimated reinforcement expenses in distribution networks, but further analyses on the impact of different constellations are necessary.