Challenges and opportunities facing electricity distribution utilities

UK electricity distribution utilities will be faced with a number of challenges and opportunities as a result of distributed generation appearing on their networks. It is argued that the current approach to distribution network design, which relies on network reinforcement practices, will not be conducive for designing networks in the future. Especially to take advantage of the opportunities while at the same time mitigating the challenges, network designers should be in a position to consider all solutions that can solve a particular design problem. This means that they should consider both network reinforcement and contemporary design solutions. Contemporary solutions include the wide range of power electronic controller devices on the market. A new framework is presented to facilitate the design of distribution networks in the future.