Examination of the effect of the reactive power control of photovoltaic systems on electric power grids and the development of a voltage-regulation method that considers feeder impedance sensitivity

Abstract

When relatively high-capacity renewable photovoltaic (PV) systems are connected to a grid, they can increase or decrease the voltage along feeders because of reverse power flow, even exceeding ± five percent of the rated voltage. Nowadays, grid-connected inverter-based PV systems that can control reactive power can alleviate such an increase or decrease in voltage by adjusting the reactive power, which is referred to as Volt/Var control and management. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to (a) perform case studies to analyze the steady-state response of a large distribution network (i.e., with more than 1000 buses) with high-capacity PV systems that can control Volt/Var (i.e., either producing or consuming reactive power) and (b) present a Volt/Var-control method for three-phase voltage regulation that uses the positive-sequence sensitivity impedance matrix with power-factor constraints. This method is verified in the IEEE 34-bus test feeder. Thus, the proposed methods can be used to regulate the voltage of a bus to which a PV system is connected if the system controls reactive power. These proposed methods can also be used for various impact studies for the operation or planning of distribution systems with such PV systems.