Master's assignment
Student: Marius Groen
Supervisors: Victor Reijnders and Johann Hurink
Programme: Electrical Engineering - University of Twente
Finished: April 2018
In this assignment, the potential of decentralized energy management for the operational cost of an electricity grid operated by a district service operator is assessed in terms of asset life and grid losses. The scope is constrained to assets in the low voltage electricity network, i.e. low voltage underground cables, cable joints, and distribution transformers. One of the sources of ageing of electricity network assets is the magnitude of the current transported over time. Current through these assets introduce grid losses, thereby also heating the asset. Increased degradation of insulation material will manifest due to increased heating. A dynamic model will be constructed to assess this effect to enable comparison of network loading profiles with respect to expected asset life and grid losses, to result in a comparison on the financial consequences. This assignment is part of the project GridFlex Heeten, in which decentralized photovoltaic production and local storage of a single neighborhood are to be combined in a local energy market using innovative pricing schemes.