ABSTRACT
As an important form of energy, electricity offers the advantages of being clean, highly efficient and convenient for users. Smart distribution networks will play an important role in future smart energy system in providing a link between the transmission grid and the consumers. A major challenge faced by smart distribution networks is the diversity in the types of distributed generators (DGs), which include photovoltaic units, wind power systems, fuel cells and micro-turbines, each DG utilizing different energy sources and showing different characteristics. Due to random fluctuations in some of the resources, for example wind and solar, energy storage systems (ESSs) are added to ensure the instantaneous and short-term power balance of the entire energy system. Power electronic converters play an essential role in a smart distribution network and bring increased controllability of active and reactive power flows. Mathematically, the optimization of a smart distribution network is usually a large-scale, non-linear optimization problem.
