Review of the Distribution Network Planning & Design Standards for the Future Low Carbon Electricity System
Overview
This report draws upon data collected during CLNR trials to make recommendations to update industry standards, including ACE49, ETR 130 and G59.
The report draws upon the wealth of information collected from the CLNR project’s real-world customer trials to explore the challenges posed by the integration of new distributed generation and demand technologies to current network planning and design standards. The UK’s electricity distribution systems were considerably expanded in 1950s and 1960s to meet increasing customer requirements. The networks were developed in accordance with network planning and design standards that have stood the test of time and are still relevant today. Nevertheless, the integration of new technologies, with fundamentally different technical and operational characteristics to those of the incumbent technologies, will prompt the need to establish how they should be treated in the planning and design of distribution networks and to establish whether modifications to the standards should be made.
In this context, this report reviews:
• ACE Report No. 491 for the design of low voltage radial distribution networks, demands and voltage by understanding future basic demand profile of regular domestic customers and those with heat pumps, electric vehicles and solar PV using smart meter data.
• Engineering Technical Report (ETR) 1302 for assessing the capability of a distribution network containing distributed generation to meet demand, in order to comply with the security requirements of ER P2/63, by exploring the information collected from test cells related to the profiling of distributed generation in order to update the current set of F-factors and to review the current methodology for assessing the contribution of distributed generation to network security.
• Engineering Recommendation (ER) G59/3-14 for the connection of generating plant to the distribution systems of electricity distribution licence holders in order to consider the fault ride-through capability of generators and interface protection.
