Impact of Network Delays on Quality of Voltage Control for Distribution Grids under Stress

Renewable energy sources (RES) such as solar and wind has emerged as the fastest growing energy sources. The growth of their deployment in the power sector leads to several challenges, for example, voltage violation, power quality issues, power losses etc. One of the several strategies to overcome the voltage violation problem is the provision of reactive power from the PV inverters. Local controller of the photo voltaic (PV) inverters coordinates with the coordinated controller to generate the reactive power. The coordinated controller performs its function based on the information obtained from the whole grid via underlying communication network. This imposes a high responsibility over the communication network infrastructure in order to ensure a reliable and stable voltage control in distribution grids (DGs). This paper, therefore, analyses the impact of communication networks on the voltage quality control supported by the reactive power generation of PV plants in DGs. Further, a voltage coordination scenario is presented based on an actual grid by a local distribution system operator (DSO) in Denmark. This paper evaluated the network performance in terms of network delays in the signal, being transferred between the smart meters of the grid and coordinated controller.