Network Charges for Micro-Generation

Micro-generations (MGs) have gain increasing awareness among general public, who begin to recognize its potential to reduce their carbon emissions and electricity bills. Their willingness of uptaking local generation technologies is stimulated through capital grant schemes and new regulations imposed on new building stock. Further growth will require the support from both markets and tight and timely building regulations. It is possible to project the growth of microgeneration for a given area, thus to assess their potential contribution in energy provision and emission reduction. It is however very challenging to evaluate their collective effects on networks, i.e. their impact on network losses, operational costs, maintenance cost and capital cost. This is due to the extensiveness of the HV/LV network. This paper explores potentially different approaches to evaluate the cost/benefits associated with a given level of MG penetration in the network at different countries, analysing their relative strengths and weakness in deriving network charges, and their potential to influence the growth and the points of connection of future MGs. The paper then uses a practical network to analyse cost/benefits to a low voltage network from different MG penetration, from which, the paper suggests a number of potential approaches to HV/LV network charges.