Future Distribution System Architecture in the UK

With diverse technologies, more active customers (consumers and prosumers) and new business models, the complexity of the distribution system has been substantially increased. Potential threats as the results of the changes could be power out and excessive charges for the prosumers. To ensure the effective and secure operation of the distribution system, a new system architecture is required to coordinate new technologies with active customers and business models to capture the value from the change. Power system architecture means the organization and interactions of the components and participants of the distribution system. This paper develops system structure for an active distribution system with increasing new players, who can take advantage of digital revolution from smart grid and smart metering to provide new value streams for distributed energy resources, and players who can help distributed energy resources to profit from the new value streams and at the same time reduces the burden to the supply system. Three possible architectures for the future distribution system are proposed: main power grid dominant architecture, micro-grid dominant architecture and prosumer dominant architecture. The architectures developed are to achieve the overall system's performance that brings benefits for existing and new players as well as the supply system.