Reactive Power Control of Mega-Solar System for Voltage Regulation with Long Distribution Line

Constant power factor control of a power conditioning system in a large-scale photovoltaic generation system (PV system) such as a mega-solar system is introduced to mitigate voltage variations on a distribution line. However, it is difficult for the control to mitigate the voltage variation on a long distribution line because of the changes in the loss on the distribution line. This paper proposes an advanced reactive power control in which the power factor of the PV system is adjusted using both the output power of the PV system and the apparent power of loads not to minimize the voltage variation at the interconnecting point but to minimize the voltage variation over the whole distribution line. We report on the results based on numerical analysis on mitigating the voltage variation by applying this control. This paper shows that the proposed control can mitigate the voltage variation better than constant power factor control can. The proposed control has the potential to be used as a measure for suppressing voltage variations on a long distribution line.