Optimal Configuration of Soft Open Point for Active Distribution Network Considering the Characteristics of Distributed Generation

Soft open point (SOP) refers to a novel power electronic device installed instead of a normally open point, also called tie switch, in a medium-voltage distribution network. The application of SOP will greatly promote the economy, flexibility and controllability of the distribution network. In the presence of higher investment and operation cost of SOP, the planning of SOP will become an urgent problem to be solved. A planning method of SOP was proposed for active distribution network. Firstly, considering the operational characteristics of distributed generation, probability density function was obtained in accordance with historical foundation, and representative scenarios were constructed based on Wasserstein distance metric. Secondly, a two-stage framework for the siting and sizing of SOP was presented, where the objective was to minimize the annual expense in the upper stage, and the objective was to minimize the operation cost of each scenario in the lower stage. Then, combining the simulated annealing method with the conic programming, this paper presented a hybrid optimization algorithm to solve this problem. Finally, the optimization model and the hybrid optimization algorithm were analyzed and verified on the IEEE 33-node test feeder.