Assessment of photovoltaic generation penetration effect on the maximum loadability of the system

Abstract

This paper proposed a method to investigate the effect of increasing PV penetration on the voltage stability of an IEEE 14-bus test system considering maximum PV penetration and system loadability limit. The critical bus of the test system has been decided based on nose curve analysis. The solar PV system is deployed with the most critical bus of the system. The effect of increasing PV penetration on the improvement in the loading capacity of various power system components like transmission lines, transmission line transformers, and generators is investigated over the adopted test system. Based on solar PV penetration up to 100 MW, the maximum loadability limit of the IEEE 14-bus test system increases, as shown by the results. Bus 14 is found to be the most severe bus of the test system using the continuation power flow (CPF) method. However, in some cases, overloading situations develop after a certain limit of PV penetration in the power system. In this condition, the overloading of the power system equipment is improved by the use of a Static Synchronous Compensator (STATCOM) at bus number 14, a double circuit line in the critical line (9–14), and Static Synchronous Series Compensator (SSSC) in the most severe line (9–14) in the system. The maximum loadability of the system gets maximum enhanced from 4.0349 p.u. to 4.5602 p.u. under simultaneous use of solar PV generation, SSSC, and STATCOM at the most critical bus and in most severe line of the system. As evidence, the enhancement in maximum loadability of the system found using the proposed method has been also compared with the existing research. The maximum system loadability has been also enhanced under normal and (N-1) contingency conditions by the use of PV penetration in the system. PSAT/MATLAB software is used for simulation and maximum loadability has been investigated by continuation power flow (CPF) method.