Hosting capacity in the Croatian regulatory environment

Installing distributed energy resources (DERs) in low voltage networks is limited by distribution grid codes, often defining a conservative connection power threshold, especially in the case of a single-phase connection or by the network’s technical constraints. Calculating the maximum installed power in that way is called hosting capacity (HC). Traditional HC calculation presents an assessment of static connection limits, determined by the lowest or highest electricity demand, depending on whether export or import limits are calculated. In this paper, we calculate the available range of aggregated active power of DERs based on worst-case and base-case demand scenarios. The results suggest the potential grid code redefinition since the analysed network can accommodate additional DERs in the range of 300 and 500 kW, compared to the current grid code limits. When observing only the grid code limitations in the import limits analysis, the results show an unrealistically high integration of more than 750 kW DERs, which is even higher than the best-case scenario. In the worst-case scenario, no additional DERs can be installed due to the initial violation of the network's constraints. Dynamic export and import limits are in the theoretical range of values, showing the benefit of the concept.