Abstract
The share of photovoltaic (PV) systems in the distribution networks is rapidly growing, leading to the common issue of overvoltage at the end of distribution feeders during the periods when peak generation is surplus to consumption. In this study, a hierarchical control is proposed to mitigate overvoltage at the point of connection of PV systems in physical low-voltage microgrids. The proposed mechanism is comprised of primary and secondary control layers to tackle the overvoltage problems given the communication capability is available. This mechanism employs a multi-objective optimisation approach to effectively coordinate curtailed active power and absorbed reactive power of the PV inverters with the aim of minimising the active power curtailment. The feasibility of the proposed control approach is successfully verified through simulations on a simplified LV network.
Highlights
The low-voltage (LV) distribution network is hosting an increasing share of photovoltaic (PV) systems, mainly driven by environmental concerns, installation cost reduction, and new energy policies
This paper investigates the droop-based active power curtailment (APC) and reactive power absorption (RPA) controls for overvoltage mitigation in LV MGs
Droop-based APC is proven to solve the overvoltage problems but at the expense of active power generation, leading to a loss in revenue of the inverters located towards the end of the feeder
Summary
The low-voltage (LV) distribution network is hosting an increasing share of photovoltaic (PV) systems, mainly driven by environmental concerns, installation cost reduction, and new energy policies. There are various solutions that can deal with overvoltage problems, such as cable reinforcement, transformer tap changer adjustment [6], active power curtailment (APC), and reactive power absorption (RPA) [7]. The combination of APC and RPA of PV inverters becomes attractive solutions to overvoltage mitigation, especially as the share of PV systems in the power network is rapidly growing. The coordinated control of APC and RPA of PV inverters within a physical LV microgrid (MG) is investigated to solve the overvoltage problems. This paper introduces the combination of the sensitivity matrix-based solution and optimisation solution to realise the coordinated control of APC and RPA of the PV inverters. The coordinated control aims at mitigating the overvoltage problems while minimising the curtailed active power.
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