Reactive Power Dynamic Assessment of a PV System in a Distribution Grid

Abstract

Accommodating more and more PV systems in grids has raised new challenges that formerly had not been considered and addressed in standards. According to recently under-discussed standards, each PV unit is allowed to participate in reactive power contributions to the grid to assist voltage control. There are some PV models in the literature however those models mostly assumed unity power factor operation for PV systems owing to the contemporary standards. Therefore, there is a need to develop a PV model considering the reactive power contribution and its dynamic influence on power system. This paper describes non-proprietary modeling of a three-phase, single stage PV system consisting of controller scheme design procedure and coping with the important aspects of three different reactive power regulation strategies and their impact assessment studies. The model is implemented in PSCAD to examine the behavior of the proposed model for recently codified reactive power strategies. Furthermore, this model is integrated in a distribution grid with two PV systems in order to effectively investigate consequences of the different reactive power control strategies on the distribution network.