Coordinated Voltage Control of Distributed PV Inverters for Voltage Regulation in Low Voltage Distribution Networks

Karthikeyan Nainar, Basanta Raj Pokhrel, Jayakrishnan Radhakrishna Pillai, Birgitte Bak-Jensen

Research output: Contribution to book/anthology/report/conference proceedingArticle in proceedingResearchpeer-review

16 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper reviews and analyzes the existing voltage control methods of distributed solar PV inverters to improve the voltage regulation and thereby the hosting capacity of a low-voltage distribution network. A novel coordinated voltage control method is proposed based on voltage sensitivity analysis, which is simple for computation and requires moderate automation and communication infrastructure. The proposed method is suitable for a hierarchical control structure where a supervisory controller has the provision to adapt the settings of local PV inverter controllers for overall system optimization. The proposed method is used to calculate the voltage bands and droop settings of PV inverters at each node by the supervisory controller. The local controller of each PV inverter implements the volt/var control and if necessary, the active power curtailment as per the received settings and based on measured local voltages. The advantage of the proposed method is that the calculated reactive power and active power droop settings enable fair contribution of the PV inverters at each node to the voltage regulation. Simulation studies are conducted using DigSilent Power factory software on a simplified form of the benchmark LV network provided by CIGRE. The simulation results show that the proposed control method is effective for overvoltage prevention compared to the conventional volt/var method, which uses same settings for all the PV inverters.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of 2017 IEEE PES Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Conference Europe (ISGT-Europe)
Number of pages6
PublisherIEEE Press
Publication dateAug 2017
ISBN (Electronic)978-1-386-1953-7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2017
Event2017 IEEE PES Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Conference Europe, ISGT-Europe 2017 - Torino, Italy
Duration: 26 Sept 201729 Sept 2017

Conference

Conference2017 IEEE PES Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Conference Europe, ISGT-Europe 2017
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityTorino
Period26/09/201729/09/2017

Keywords

  • Active distribution network
  • Hierarchical control
  • Hosting capacity
  • Solar PV inverters
  • Volt/var control

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