Hosting Capacity Estimation for Behind-the-Meter Distributed Generation

Power utilities worldwide are facing a growing number of customers’ requests to authorize the interconnection of behind-the-meter distributed generation. This paper presents a new practical methodology for power utilities to estimate the amount of small-scale distributed generation they can accommodate in the low-voltage level of distribution feeders without potential harm to the latter. It considers both medium-voltage and low-voltage levels limiting criteria to determine the locational hosting capacities. The proposed method uses detailed models of distribution feeders extracted from the geographical information system of power utilities and the location of existing customers. A new tool based on the proposed methodology is also described in the paper to show how the methodology can be easily integrated into existing planning tools of power utilities. It reports the circuits’ total hosting capacity and provides hosting capacity maps with results per medium-voltage feeder section, distribution transformer, and low-voltage system. Results for real large-scale distribution feeder models demonstrate the practicality and potential of this methodology.