Harmonics Constrained Approach to Composite Power System Expansion Planning with Large-Scale Renewable Energy Sources

Renewable energy sources (RES) are becoming more attractive due to the global demand for the utilization of clean energy and their easy accessibility. The integration of renewable energy technologies into power systems has been made easy, such that RES can be incorporated into small distribution systems or power grids. This integration of RES has negative impacts on power quality, system reliability, and network security. This could affect the RES performance and causes power quality-related problems such as harmonics, voltage flickers, swell, and sag. This paper presents a generation and transmission expansion planning model with the integration of large-scale RES considering harmonic emissions constraints. This method uses a weighted sum approach to combine the multi-objective optimization problems, thereby minimizing the total costs, active power loss, and harmonic power loss. An analytical technique was developed to estimate and quantify the harmonic emissions from the RES components. The proposed AC mixed-integer non-linear optimization problem was solved using algebraic modeling language. The proposed model is demonstrated on non-distorted Garver’s test bus system and 48-bus of Nigeria’s power system. The results obtained from the sensitivity analysis can be used as a decision-making tool to determine the best approach to minimize harmonic emissions from RES integration into the grid.