Decentralized Control Strategy to Improve Fairness in Active Power Curtailment of PV Inverters in Low-Voltage Distribution Networks

Abstract

The conventional <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">volt-watt</i> control method used in PV inverters to overcome the over-voltage problems can result in significant unfairness in the curtailed active power in PV-rich distribution networks. In this paper, a novel decentralized control strategy is presented to improve fairness in the curtailed active power of inverters. In this strategy, first, each PV inverter calculates the ratio of its node voltage magnitude change to its injected active power. Then, the calculated value by the farthest PV inverter of each phase from the transformer is shared with other PV inverters connected to the same phase. Using this value, PV inverters adjust their control parameters of an enhanced <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">volt-var-watt</i> control method. The performance of this method is evaluated using various simulation studies by making reference to the IEEE European low-voltage test feeder and considering different levels of PV system integration. It is shown that the proposed control strategy can significantly improve the fairness of the active power curtailment among PV inverters. Finally, the result of a comparative analysis between the proposed strategy and two state-of-the-art communication-based methods is reported.