Efficiency impacts of distribution secondaries

Distribution feeder models do not typically include secondary lines and distribution transformers. In general, sufficient data concerning the secondary impedances and individual customer demands has not been available to accurate assess the losses and voltage drops accrued across these portions of the feeder. However, feeder data collected through GIS and AMI programs may permit more accurate representation of system behavior at the customer level. In this paper, the impacts of typical secondary loss modeling assumptions and circuit configurations are evaluated against models derived from detailed secondary circuit data and field measurements collected by Consumers Energy.