Assessments of battery storage options for distribution expansion planning using an OpenDSS-based framework

The increased integration of distributed energy resources (DER), based mainly on renewable sources, imposes new challenges on the distribution system operation and planning. The recent developments in energy storage technologies provide opportunities to use them as distributed storage systems. This paper presents a framework to assess the investments in battery energy storage systems (BESS) for distribution expansion planning, considering a high penetration of solar photovoltaic (PV) distributed generators. The size and allocation of BESS are optimized by applying the Evolutionary Particle Swarm Optimization (EPSO) algorithm and using the OpenDSS simulator to model and simulate the distribution network. The proposed framework is tested on a typical Latin American distribution network, considering first, conventional network reinforcements and later, taking into account BESS as an expansion option. The main results show the greatest contribution of BESS could lie in the flexibility provided to the distribution expansion planning by deferring capital-intensive investment network reinforcements.