Strategies for increasing hosting capacity in PV-rich LV feeders via radiality-imposed reconfiguration

Abstract

With the growing volume of photovoltaic (PV) systems in residential low-voltage (LV) feeders, the voltage rise has become a widespread issue. In order to address this challenge, therefore, this paper proposes extending a radiality-imposed reconfiguration approach, which has proven to be an effective method at the medium voltage (MV) level to the LV level. To cater for the complexity inherent to LV feeders, which typically entail thousands of nodes and almost none switches, two practical and viable strategies for Distribution Network Operators (DNOs) are proposed. The first strategy encompasses leveraging a branch-exchange approach for a feeder with a voltage rise that has neighboring feeders having additional headroom for voltage. The second strategy is, on the other hand, the deployment of a new transformer to address the problem of voltage rise for feeders when neighboring feeders lack additional voltage headroom. In order to realistically quantify the impact of PV systems on LV feeders and assess the effectiveness of the proposed solutions, a Monte-Carlo approach is adopted. The results show that both strategies, considering the existing feeder on-site, are effective for enhancing hosting capacity in the LV feeders. This paper, consequently, provides contributions to the methods that augment hosting capacity in LV feeders with PV systems by proposing practical and effective solutions.