Distribution Voltage Regulation Through Active Power Curtailment With PV Inverters and Solar Generation Forecasts

Authors: Shibani Ghosh; Saifur Rahman; Manisa Pipattanasomporn
Publisher: IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy ( Volume: 8, Issue: 1, Jan. 2017)
Published on: 06/07/2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/TSTE.2016.2577559
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Abstract:

Distribution voltage profiles are subjected to overvoltage limit violations from high penetration of grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) systems. Such voltage rises seen at the point of PV interconnection can be mitigated by adaptively changing the active and/or reactive power injection from the PV inverter. This work proposes a local voltage regulation technique that utilizes very short-term (15 s) PV power forecasts to circumvent imminent upper voltage limit violation or an overvoltage scenario. To provide these PV generation forecasts, a hybrid forecasting method is formulated based on Kalman filter theory, which applies physical PV generation modeling using high-resolution (15 s) data from on-site measurements. The proposed algorithm employs an active power curtailment based on these PV power forecasts, when the reactive power estimate given by a droop-based method cannot provide the desired voltage regulation within predefined power factor limits. The curtailment threshold values are calculated in such a way that this voltage regulation technique can reduce possible voltage limit violations. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated with case studies developed on a standard test feeder with realistic load and PV generation profiles.


Keywords:
Active power curtailment , distribution voltage regulation , high photovoltaic (PV) penetration , Kalman filter (KF) , overvoltage prevention , solar forecasting