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Electrical distribution networks are often inadequate to comply with the increasing load demand and to enable new installation of distributed energy resources. This inadequacy may result in upgrading existing transformers of in disconnecting the entire load during demand peaks, and into wasting a portion of the total renewable energy produced during favorable weather conditions. Increasing the capacity of electrical distribution network components is therefore mandatory in order to avoid these negative circumstances; however replacing lines and transformers is costly, and often the benefits are not worth the investments. Fortunately, the capacity of distribution networks can be unlocked by managing the electrical components by their dynamic ratings, allowing operating them even beyond their rated ampacity for a limited interval of time. This paper proposes a new risk-based procedure to manage distribution transformers by their dynamic rating. Probabilistic forecasts of loads and ambient temperatures are the inputs of the procedure, which are obtained in this paper from quantile regression forests. The procedure quantifies, in a probabilistic framework, the insulation thermal ageing due to the transformer (over)load in terms of the cost sustained for rewinding the transformer. The corresponding estimated risk is made available to the distribution system operator, who may therefore take a decision comparing it to an arbitrary level of risk coverage, favoring either the power delivery to customers or the reduction of the transformer ageing rate; this level is formulated in this paper having an intuitive physical meaning, thus enabling its setting also by non-expert operators. Comprehensive numerical experiments based on actual data are presented under different configurations and scenarios, in order to validate the proposal from an energetic and economic point of view.

Reactive power forecasting is essential for managing energy systems of factories and industrial plants. However, the scientific community has devoted scant attention to industrial load forecasting, and even less to reactive power forecasting. Many challenges in developing a short-term reactive power forecasting system for factories have rarely been studied. Industrial loads may depend on many factors, such as scheduled processes and work shifts, which are uncommon or unnecessary in classical load forecasting models. Moreover, the features of reactive power are significantly different from active power, so some commonly used variables in classical load forecasting models may become meaningless for forecasting reactive power. In this paper, we develop several models to forecast industrial reactive power. These models are constructed based on two forecasting techniques (e.g., multiple linear regression and support vector regression) and two variable selection methods (e.g., cross validation and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator). In the numerical applications based on real data collected from an Italian factory at both aggregate and individual load levels, the proposed models outperform four benchmark models in short forecast horizons.

The new electric system restructuring requires more and more restrictive power quality requirements to be satisfied. The problem of disturbances compensation therefore becomes of noticeable importance, both in terms of device allocation and control strategy. The paper deals with active compensators, whose utilization is rapidly growing in modern power system, whereas power electronic devices play a fundamental role in controlling system behavior. An optimal control strategy for active compensators, particularly useful for distribution companies in a deregulated framework, is proposed with the aim of improving power quality. The proposed strategy is based upon a frequency domain approach for solving a linear quadratic regulator problem, without exceeding compensator rating. The proposed procedure is able to properly consider the buses sensitivity to different power quality disturbances. The methodology relies upon a Kalman filter based estimation technique, which enables an accurate tracking of relevant network state variables, as well as of harmonic disturbances injected into the power system. In the last part of the paper a numerical application with reference to a 18-busbar distribution network is presented, showing the feasibility and the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.