Integrated distribution system and urban district planning with high renewable penetrations

Recent efforts to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions haveresulted in the development of sustainable, smart districts with highly energy effi-cient buildings, renewable distributed energy resources (DERs), and support foralternative modes of transportation. However, there is typically little if any coordi-nation between the district developers and the local utility. Most attention is paid tothe district's annual net load and generation without considering their instantaneousimbalance or the connecting network's state. This presents an opportunity to learnlessons from the design of distribution feeders for districts characterized by lowloads and high penetrations of DERs that can be applied to the distribution grid atlarge. The aim of this overview is to summarize current practices in sustainable dis-trict planning as well as advances in modeling and design tools for incorporatingthe power distribution system into the district planning process. Recent develop-ments in the modeling and optimization of district power systems, including theircoordination with multi-energy systems and the impact of high penetration levelsof renewable energy, are introduced. Sustainable districts in England and Japan arereviewed as case studies to illustrate the extent to which distribution system plan-ning has been considered in practice. Finally, newly developed building-to-gridmodeling tools that can facilitate coordinated district and power system design withutility involvement are introduced, along with suggestions for future researchdirections