On the Contributions of Smart-Inverters Control Strategies to Voltage Profile Regulation in a Low Voltage Distribution Network

The increasing penetration of rooftops photovoltaic (PV) plants in the distribution network imposes new challenges to system operation. The presence of distributed generation in a grid that was not designed to be bidirectional in power flow causes several disturbances, such as oscillations in the voltage profile across the distribution feeder. This paper presents a comparative analysis of possible contributions of PV Smart-Inverter's control strategies for voltage regulation in low voltage distribution networks. A set of metrics were used to quantify the performance of each control, and the 12-bus benchmark of CIGRE was used in PSCAD/EMTDC (R) software. Several scenarios were analyzed by an automated simulation routine that was developed to run a large number of simulations scenarios. The obtained results indicate the capability of each control strategy to improve the voltage profile for every level of PV penetration.