Combined Effects of Load Variability and Phase Imbalance Onto Simulated LV Losses

This paper investigates the impact of the combined effects of load variability and phase imbalance onto simulated low-voltage grid losses. The paper proposes new indices for relative load time-variability and phase-imbalance. With those indices, linear mappings are derived for the relative losses caused by a single three-phase load when modeled as a random variable that is per-phase identical and independently distributed. Impacts of increasingly complex load modeling are then obtained by simulation and used to gain insight into loss estimation errors caused by simplified representations of time-variability and phase-imbalance. Based on the linear mappings and on the simulation results obtained under realistic grid loading, limitations of present day meter resolution are discussed.