IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - March/April 2017 - 51

The power of a GIS lies in its ability to use many types
of data related to the same geographical area, i.e.,
combining different data sets within a single platform.
Accounting for self-generation was, however, not as
smooth and straightforward as initially expected by the general public and the Costa Rican Association of Solar Energy.
It took about three years of consultation processes and regulation amendments before the current set of rules was finally
published by the Ministry of Energy and Environment,
along with the grid access fees defined by ARESEP. These
access fees were created to cover the network's fixed costs,
which are shared by all customers.

Geo-Information Is Power
The power of a GIS lies in its ability to use many types of
data related to the same geographical area, i.e., combining different data sets within a single platform. In the last
decade, Costa Rican DNOs have been using GISs to manage
the geo-referenced data of network components (e.g., location and capacity of transformers and length, spacing, and
type of conductors) and customers (e.g., connection point,
type and average monthly energy consumption). For distri-

bution network analysis purposes, however, this data has
only been adopted to manually update medium-voltage
(MV) network models developed in a separate commercial
software package. Low-voltage (LV) circuits and, therefore,
the corresponding customers have never been modeled in
detail. While this simplified approach has been effective so
far, the impact assessment from rooftop PV systems connected to different voltages requires modeling the circuits
in a more sophisticated way. In addition to the LV and MV
assets being modeled simultaneously, customer consumption and location data can be exploited to produce realistic
daily load profiles. The sociodemographics of the area can
also be derived to estimate the potential sizes and locations
of rooftop PV systems. Finally, PV generation profiles can
be produced by combining the latter with geo-referenced
irradiance from meteorological databases. Placing all these
large data sets in a single GIS platform, and then integrating
it with a distribution network analysis software, is not trivial
and requires clearly defined procedures.

Legend
Distributed Generation (kW)
0.2-1.6
1.6-3.5
3.5-5.5
5.5-7.6
7.6-12.7
12.7-22.0
22.0-53.0
53.0-64.8
Concession Area
Canton

figure 2. The location of rooftop PV systems in CNFL (as of early 2015).
march/april 2017

ieee power & energy magazine

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - March/April 2017

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