Comparative analysis of distribution level and house level conservation voltage reduction strategies in a residential distribution system

Abstract

Within the smart grid concept, residential customers can now be treated as active demand through the use of smart grid technologies such as smart meters, smart plugs, smart appliances, etc. In general, load shifting and/or load shedding are mostly used to control the residential demand in smart grid. In smart houses, house level conservation voltage reduction (CVR) technique can also be used to actively control the residential demand. The application of house level CVR provides added flexibility in residential demand management. In this study, a comparative analysis of CVR applications on both distribution system level and house level are completed for a 19-bus residential distribution system. ETAP software is used to analyze the considered residential distribution system. Both total power demand and distribution system power loss values are obtained for two different load side power factor values in three cases: No-CVR, Distribution Transformer Level CVR and House Level CVR. It is shown that distribution system total power demand and power loss can be further reduced with the application of house level CVR. In addition, it is shown that neglecting distribution system line inductances introduces small differences in results.