Development of strategic plans and scenarios for the Smart Grid and their impact - a case study of muscat interconnected system

The measures to reduce energy consumption during peak hours results in delaying the augmentation of generation, transmission and distribution capacity. This delay in capacity addition is an avoided cost and a significant benefit to electric utilities. The reduction in energy consumption is achievable through smart grid implementation. Therefore, the utilities need to investigate whether upgrading their grid system to make it smarter is economically justifiable or not. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the demand-side management (DSM), energy efficiency measures and distributed generation benefits of smart grid in Oman. The developed scenarios include grid enhancement, customer contribution to the grid and both of these options at the same time. The scenarios are analyzed for peak reduction and their benefits are calculated in terms of avoided cost in terms of generation, transmission, distribution, and environmental costs.