Abstract
Due to a greater social and environmental awareness of citizens, advantageous regulations and a favourable economic return on investment, the presence of photovoltaic (PV) installations in distribution grids is increasing. In the future, not only a significant increase in photovoltaic generation is expected, but also in other of the so-called distributed energy resources (DER), such as wind generation, storage, electric vehicle charging points or manageable demands. Despite the benefits posed by these technologies, an uncontrolled spread could create important challenges for the power system, such as increase of energy losses or voltages out-of-limits along the grid, for example. These issues are expected to be more pronounced in low voltage (LV) distribution networks. This article has two main objectives: proposing a method to calculate the LV distributed photovoltaic generation hosting capacity (HC) that minimizes system losses and evaluating different management techniques for solar PV inverters and their effect on the hosting capacity. The HC calculation is based on a mixture of deterministic methods using time series data and statistical ones: using real smart meters data from customers and generating different combinations of solar PV facilities placements and power to evaluate its effect on the grid operation.
Highlights
The interest in renewable energies has grown considerably all over the world in recent time.Among renewable energies, solar photovoltaics is by far the most widespread technology adopted for distributed power generation
Solar photovoltaics is by far the most widespread technology adopted for distributed power generation
Proposed solutions are: network reinforcement, STATCOM use, prosumer storage, increase of self-consumption using tariff incentives, curtailment of power feed-in to the grid, active power control of PV inverter depending on the grid voltage (P(U)), reactive power control of PV inverter depending on the grid voltage or generated active power (Q(U) and Q(P)) or demand response managed by local price signals are some examples
Summary
Solar photovoltaics is by far the most widespread technology adopted for distributed power generation. The global photovoltaic energy generation capacity is increasing rapidly due to efficiency improvements and cost reductions in recent years. It is expected that by 2022, solar PV will be the largest renewable energy source worldwide [1]. Not too many years ago, photovoltaic systems were considered suitable only for isolated systems in remote locations, because solar PV was costly and there were serious concerns regarding negative impacts on the grid [2]. Together with improved inverter technology and new standards and regulations have made solar PV attractive for grid connected applications, covering a wide range from utility-scale facilities to small, distributed installations
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