Hosting Capacity evaluation in Radial and Weakly Meshed Medium Voltage Networks

In radial and meshed medium voltage networks, the integration of Renewable Energy Sources (RESs) is limited by operational constraints related to overvoltages and line or transformer overloading, which can lead to power quality issues and equipment stress. RESs curtailment is a common but not optimal strategy used to mitigate these issues. Unlike conventional methods that depend on nonlinear optimization or computationally intensive algorithms, this work presents a new linear optimization framework aimed at reducing RES curtailment by leveraging the flexibility available in the network. The approach maintains voltage profiles and loading within permissible limits by replacing conventional power flow equations with linear voltage drop approximations.