Reconfiguring the power grid: Assessing the benefits of making Utrecht Science Park’s power grid dynamically reconfigurable

Abstract

Increasing implementation of renewable energy as well as increasing electrification of formerly fossil forms of energy consumption, is leading to increasing problems with congestion in both transmission and distribution grids. There are several possible ways in which this problem can be mitigated, one of which is by implementing dynamic grid reconfiguration. In this study the effects of dynamic grid reconfiguration on local distribution grids were studied. This was done by creating several scenarios of what the distribution grid at Utrecht Science Park (USP) would be subjected to in the future, and modelling the effects that reconfigurability would have on this grid. It was found that in several possible future scenarios USP’s distribution grid would be severely congested in the future, and that most of that congestion could be mitigated by the introduction of dynamic reconfigurability.