Economic Dispatch of Smart Distribution Networks for Electricity Cost Reduction

Consumers' electricity cost keeps increasing over the time in most countries across the world. The main reason is that importing electricity from generation plants far from a load center is relatively expensive, as costs are paid not only for generation but also for energy loss and network use. To this end, it is more economical to use electricity generated by local distributed generations. In order to reduce customers' electricity cost, a new economic dispatch of smart distribution networks is proposed. Economic dispatch of smart distribution network is to meet load demand with the least consumers' electricity cost considering distributed generators, while recognizing all operational limits of generation and transmission facilities in a distribution network. Case study shows that consumers' electricity cost can be reduced by about 20% through economic dispatch of distribution network. Further, generation cost and emission of distribution network are reduced as well.