Coordinated voltage control strategy for voltage regulators and voltage source converters integrated distribution system

Abstract

Modern day distribution systems (DS) is now hosting increasing number of both small and large scale distributed energy resources (DERs). Even though these DERs have capability to support reactive power along with the active power they provide, practitioners are still hesitant in utilizing the reactive power potential from these DERs. One of the major concerns for the distribution system operator is the coordination between the existing voltage regulators and the inverter based reactive power sources in the DS. This paper presents a situational aware and agnostic coordinated control strategy for voltage regulation in the DS considering power electronic based inverters as reactive power sources that work in conjunction with the existing legacy controllers for an overall value based voltage regulation of the entire feeder. It has also been shown that this can be achieved without major changes in the communication framework currently utilized by the utility (another concern for DS operator). The proposed control technique has been tested in the field verified model of a real feeder. Results show that the proposed coordination approach has a major economic as well and power quality benefits in the operation of DS.