Grid Connected Photovoltaic Systems to the Urban Environment of Argentinian Northeast

Abstract

The last 20 years have presented a favorable scenario for the incorporation of renewable energy sources into the energy matrix of developing countries. This situation promoted grid connected photovoltaic generation systems (GCPVS) to become one of the main protagonists in this new concept of energy matrix. In some developing countries the use of such systems is in its beginning. Promotion policies and technical as well as regulatory conditions for their installation have just started to be defined. In this context, there exists in Argentina a legal and regulatory framework for the implementation of large photovoltaic plants but there is a lack of such legal framework for distributed generation (DG) by means of grid connected photovoltaic into the medium and low voltage distribution networks. This situation led research centers, together with private and provincial Energy Agencies to install pilot systems in order to identify and characterize their impact on the low voltage distribution network, taking into account the local grid capacity and characteristics of each province. In this paper the implications of different degrees of penetration of solar photovoltaic power generation evaluated using technical parameters of the network is presented. A set of examples of residential users connected to a distribution substation in the city of Corrientes is analyzed by means of a simulation using real grid data with the incorporation of GCPVS generation. The simulation results show that both the level of penetration of GCPVS systems as well as location where these distributed energy sources should couple to the distribution grid must be carefully assessed to maximize the benefits of the inclusion of distributed generation in urban environments.