Abstract
The increasing pressure for network operators to meet distribution network power quality standards with increasing peak loads, renewable energy targets, and advances in automated distributed power electronics and communications is forcing policy-makers to understand new means to distribute costs and benefits within electricity markets. Discussions surrounding how distributed generation (DG) exhibits active voltage regulation and power factor/reactive power control and other power quality capabilities are complicated by uncertainties of baseline local distribution network power quality and to whom and how costs and benefits of improved electricity infrastructure will be allocated. DG providing ancillary services that dynamically respond to the network characteristics could lead to major network improvements. With proper market structures renewable energy systems could greatly improve power quality on distribution systems with nearly no additional cost to the grid operators. Renewable DG does have variability challenges, though this issue can be overcome with energy storage, forecasting, and advanced inverter functionality. This paper presents real data from a large-scale grid-connected PV array with large-scale storage and explores effective mitigation measures for PV system variability. We discuss useful inverter technical knowledge for policy-makers to mitigate ongoing inflation of electricity network tariff components by new DG interconnection requirements or electricity markets which value power quality and control.
Highlights
There are comparable needs to find cost-effective means to maintain electricity network integrity with increasing peak electricity demand growth and high penetrations of new clean energy systems [1,2,3,4,5,6]
There is an opportunity for energy policy to enable new technologies to improve distribution network power quality by establishing cost-recovery mechanisms in bilateral electricity markets, short-term markets, load balancing markets, and capacity markets by properly valuing the procurement of frequency and voltage control services
At present electricity markets generally favour conventional spinning reserve options or DSM rather than automated technologies that are suitable for rapid response on the distribution network and smaller lines in the transmission network
Summary
There are comparable needs to find cost-effective means to maintain electricity network integrity with increasing peak electricity demand growth and high penetrations of new clean energy systems [1,2,3,4,5,6]. It is within this natural variability of the existing networks that proponents/owners of grid-connected PV systems are increasingly becoming entangled within government and network utility discussions concerned with growing penetrations on the diversity of local distribution networks and the associated challenge to meet strict power quality control standards [14] It is common for long distribution network feeders at the substation to operate very close to the maximum rated voltage allowed by standards and well above nominal voltages to compensate for lower voltages at the end of the feeder remaining within range during high demand times. As the evolution of electricity policy and pricing mechanisms continue to fall well behind the technical advancements and options available to the network, there are increasing misallocations of resources that do not incentivise/compensate investments in higher efficiency technology that improve dynamic power quality and maximise the existing capacity of distribution networks to meet the growing diversity of new loads within regulated standards of power quality
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