Impact of Distributed Generation on Distribution Network in South America: A Techno-Operational Analysis: Análisis tecno-operativo

Over the past decade, the substantial expansion of distributed generation (DG) in South American´s Distribution Networks (DN) has represented a paradigmatic shift that both industry and academia must address. Numerous studies have focused on assessing this integration from a technical–operational perspective. In this context, this article presents a literature review on DG integration and its impacts on DNs, focusing on studies that explicitly represent the DN through electrical modeling within the analytical framework. This research has been conducted within a South American context by an exhaustive analysis of scientific articles published between 2013 and 2024, applying the Prisma methodology. The investigation demonstrated that photovoltaic technology constitutes the primary generation source examined, also revealing a marked preference for OpenDSS as the analytical tool and identifying Brazil as the country with the highest research volume in this field. In addition to providing a detailed analysis of key studies, relevant parameters, commonly studied DN cases, and frequently used computational tools, this study also examines the impact of DG across different DN levels. In this regard, it discusses research areas that have received little attention thus far, highlighting the need for further exploration in these areas to fully understand the effects of DG