Geographically determined Interactions of Distributed Generation, Consumption and the Transmission Network in the Case of Denmark

In the past decade, Denmark has dramatically increased the share of distributed power generation from wind power and decentralised co-generation of heat and power (DCHP). This trend will conti-nue, with the consequence that the power transmission network will face capacity problems in the future. At some times electricity has to be exported to neighbouring countries at market prices pro-bably lower than the costs of generation. To match production and consumption in the future, and at the same time maintain a good economy, alternative regulation instruments have to be found. These could consist of distributed regulation schemes, such as heat pumps, flexible consumption and other locally implemented technologies. To be able to assess the potential of these distributed regulation schemes, the geographically distributed wind power potential and the decentralised generation ca-pacities have to be compared with the geographical distribution of electricity and district heat con-sumption. This paper presents a methodology for modelling the geographically determined interac-tions between local producers and consumption. The country has been divided into about 100 zones, for which hourly balances have been calculated. For this purpose a spatio-temporal model has been set up, including a geographical information system (GIS) and a time-series database of the national energy system. The GIS is based on the delimitation of areas of influence for each of the transfor-mer stations on the 150/132 kV level. The time series database contains hourly power balances for consumption and production. After describing the design of the spatio-temporal database, a simple balance model is described. The results will be used for ongoing projects, which include compre-hensive analyses of the transmission grid and the organisation of local electricity markets.