Grant: Engage Grants Program

Legacy electric power distribution system is characterized by unidirectional power flow from centralized generation to end use consumers. With the growing interest in renewable energy sources and in particular rooftop solar photovoltaic in the residential sector, bi-directional power flow emerges which become one of the main characteristics of active electric power distribution system. Greater Sudbury Hydro Inc. (GSHI) is one of many municipalities in Ontario in which the penetration of rooftop solar photovoltaic continues to grow into its networks. To date, GSHI base their design of distribution transformer sizing on the hypothesis that all residential homes consumes power only (i.e., unidirectional power flow). However, when considering rooftop solar photovoltaic, the power flow becomes bi-directional which requires a change in the size of the transformer. By determining the power requirements which involves bidirectional power flow, the transformer size can be properly selected to allow more residents to be served. This proposed project aims to determine the optimal number of residential customers to be served by standard distribution transformer sizes to be used by GSHI. The outcome of this project will help GSHI to efficiently use the limited capital and enable large penetration of rooftop solar photovoltaic into their networks.