Impact assessment of new services in the Galapagos low voltage network

The Galapagos Islands are a fragile ecosystem which belongs to Ecuador. About 26.000 people are located in four islands of the archipelago and 60% of the population is concentrated on Santa Cruz Island. Combined technologies are used for providing electricity such as thermal, photovoltaic and wind. The government of Ecuador is fostering the policy zero CO2 emissions within the islands. In order to achieve this objective, some initiatives are carried out like replacing the conventional vehicles by electrical ones and the gas stoves by induction ones. Taking into account this framework, it becomes vital to assess the impact of these new policies on the distribution network; for sure, this will change significantly the operation and control of Galapagos distribution grid. Hence, strong integration of distributed generation, electric vehicles, and induction cookers must be assessed at the low voltage level, where they are usually connected. This paper assesses the impact of all the new services on the low voltage network as well as the new electric demand due to natural population grow. Real field information has been used in the models presented.