Abstract
Active and reactive power control using smart inverters (SI) is highly effective in mitigating voltage rise in distribution systems, which is caused by the high penetration of photovoltaic (PV) power generation. However, the voltage control performance depends on the SI settings. We propose a new approach that uniquely determines the parameter settings for volt-VAR-watt control based on the active and reactive power-voltage sensitivity matrix of SIs. Because the voltage sensitivity matrix is calculated based solely on the impedance of the distribution system and it does not vary with time or the number of SIs, the proposed method can determine the individual SI parameter settings theoretically and efficiently without the need for optimization problem formulation, power flow calculation, or communication between the SIs. To evaluate the proposed method, the voltage control performance in a real distribution system model with a large number of PV installations is compared with that of volt-VAR-watt control using default parameters and optimized parameters in case that the load demand and PV generation are given in advance. The results show that the proposed method achieves better control performance than other conventional methods in terms of all the evaluation indices; in particular, it realizes effective control in the case of voltage rise. Furthermore, the proposed method can also achieve the same level of voltage control performance as the optimization results, even though it uses only the voltage sensitivity matrix and SI rating capacities for parameters determination, and the accuracy of the proposed voltage control can be ensured.
Highlights
D ISTRIBUTED energy resources, such as photovoltaic (PV) power generation, are being increasingly adopted worldwide to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and realize a sustainable society
The red line in the figure represents the smart inverters (SI) for which the active power sensitivity and reactive power sensitivity are equal, meaning that the SIs located above the red line have high sensitivity to reactive power control owing to the distribution system impedance; the SIs located below the red line have high sensitivity to active power control
In this distribution system model, there are 6057 low-voltage customers, 1577 of which have high reactive power-voltage sensitivity and the remaining 4480 have high active power-voltage sensitivity, indicating that volt-watt control is effective against voltage rise in many of the SIs
Summary
D ISTRIBUTED energy resources, such as photovoltaic (PV) power generation, are being increasingly adopted worldwide to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and realize a sustainable society. Because the voltage sensitivity matrix defined in this study is calculated on the basis of the impedance of the distribution system, it neither changes with time nor depends on the number of SIs. the individual SI parameters can be determined in a straightforward manner without the need for optimization problem formulation, power flow calculation with the detailed load demand and PV output, or communication between the SIs. the voltage control performance using the proposed method is compared with the conventional volt-VAR-watt control with default parameters and optimized parameters in case that the load demand and PV generation are given in advance by considering all the significant factors such as the amount of voltage violation, reactive power, active power curtailment, distribution loss, and the number of tap operations.
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