Optimal Placement of a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) in a Distribution Network

This paper focuses on the strategies for the placement of BESS optimally in a power distribution network with both conventional and wind power generations. Battery energy storage systems being flexible and having fast response characteristics could be technically placed in a distribution network for several applications such as peak-shaving, power loss minimization, mitigation of voltage deviations, minimization of congestion, and as an emergency backup for renewable energy generations which are weather dependent for the generation of electricity. For the placement of the BESS, the system costs comprising the costs for the power losses and voltage deviations were used in the formulation of the algorithm for the optimization model. Then, Particle swarm optimization (PSO) and Fmincon MATLAB optimization solver were deployed for the minimization of the objective function. The optimization results from the two methods were used in determining the optimal location of the Battery energy storage system. Moreover, by placing the BESS in the best possible location in the IEEE 33-bus system. Simulation results show that over 50% reduction of the active power losses was achieved, and the magnitude of the voltage at each of the buses of the power distribution network was improved.