Enhancing Conservation Voltage Reduction with Grid Edge Volt-VAr Control

Abstract

Conservation Voltage Reduction (CVR) enables electric distribution utilities to achieve a significant reduction in energy and peak demand, and without impacting customers through load shedding or major equipment investments. With the deployment of Dynamic VAr Controllers (DVCs) at the secondary side of distribution transformers, the voltage will be regulated tightly at local and feeder-wide level. In addition, when DVCs provide voltage regulation and visibility at the secondary side, there is more room for voltage reduction and thereby the benefits of CVR get enhanced. Based on a pilot project and field testing at Commonwealth Edison Company (ComEd) in Chicago, Illinois, this paper measures and shows the benefits of DVCs in raising voltage at limiting nodes by 0.88% – 2.04%. Further, a regression-based calculation method is presented to estimate the energy savings. The results show 1.23% extra energy savings exclusively provided by DVCs deployment.