(1. Electric Power Research Institute of Guangdong Power Grid Corporation, Guangzhou 510080, China; 2. Key Laboratory of Control of Power Transmission and Conversion, Ministry of Education, School of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China)

Energy storage systems play an important role in smoothing the power fluctuation of intermittent energy sources. They can also be effectively used to provide peak shaving, voltage quality improvement, and flexible power adjustment. The efficiency of an active distribution network (ADN) to accommodating high penetration of intermittent renewable energy resources and its optimal operation depend on appropriate placement of energy storage systems. This paper develops a multi-objective optimal placement model for energy storage systems in an ADN with the three objectives of peak shaving capacity, voltage quality and power self-regulation capacity. Additionally, a weighted minimum module ideal point method is proposed to simplify the multi-objective programming problem by avoiding the Pareto front. Finally, the case study results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed multi-objective optimization model and its solution method.