ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Energy Res.
Sec. Smart Grids
An Optimization Planning Method for the Rural Distribution System Considering the On-Load Tap Changer (OLTC) and the Energy Storage
Provisionally accepted
- 1Electric Power Research Institute, State Grid Anhui Electric Power Co. Ltd., Hefei, China
- 2Anhui Mingsheng Hengzhuo Technology Co., Ltd, Hefei, China
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Under the guidance of the "dual-carbon" target, rural distribution systems are increasingly challenged by power fluctuations and voltage violations due to the growing penetration of distributed photovoltaic (PV) generation. To address these issues, this paper proposes an optimization planning method for rural distribution systems that considers on-load tap changers (OLTCs), energy storage systems (ESSs), and auxiliary flexible interconnection devices such as soft open points (SOPs). A bi-level optimization model is developed: the upper-level minimizes total planning and operational costs by determining the optimal deployment of OLTCs and ESSs under technical and economic constraints; the lower-level evaluates system reliability by calculating the expected energy not supplied (EENS) based on the fault impact matrix (FIM), while ensuring network connectivity and exclusive transfer paths. An iterative strategy is proposed to solve the bi-level optimization model, where the upper-level planning decisions and the lower-level reliability evaluation solutions interact until the convergence condition is satisfied. The framework of the iterative strategy is implemented in AMPL with the Gurobi solver to ensure computational efficiency. Simulation results indicate that the proposed method achieves 100% PV accommodation, reduces the EENS by over 50% and reduces the power system costs by approximately 16%, effectively improving both economic performance and reliability.
Keywords: Rural distribution system, coordinated planning approach, OLTC, Energy stroage, Reliabiity
Received: 25 Aug 2025; Accepted: 03 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yang, Zhong, Zhou, Xu, Jiao and Xu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xin Yang, 1742507181@mail.hfut.edu.cn
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