Collaborative volt-VAR control using grid-connected PV inverters

Mohammadreza Miranbeigi, Prasad Kandula, Karthik Kandasamy, Deepak Divan

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel volt-VAR control (VVC) strategy for grid connected PV inverters that can enable a dramatic increase in the level of PV penetration on distribution feeders. The volatility of PV resources, coupled with their dispersed location on distribution feeders, can cause wide swings in voltage along the feeder - often outside the required ANSI band. Conventional PV inverters initially started out operating purely in MPPT mode. More recently inverters have been used for grid support using centrally dispatched VARs. This generally provides unsatisfactory compensation as it does not take into account volatility, system impedances and local load variations. Another approach has been through the use of voltage-VAR droop profiles. Maintaining a tight voltage band can cause interactions between inverters, while a broader droop band causes imprecise regulation and provides poor controllability. This paper proposes a novel new 'collaborative control' strategy for realizing VVC for grid-connected inverters, which works purely on local information, where even adjacent inverters do not 'fight' each other, and where the system can provide fast and precise control of VARs and voltage.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationPEDG 2019 - 2019 IEEE 10th International Symposium on Power Electronics for Distributed Generation Systems
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages252-257
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9781728124551
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2019
Externally publishedYes
Event10th IEEE International Symposium on Power Electronics for Distributed Generation Systems, PEDG 2019 - Xi'an, China
Duration: Jun 3 2019Jun 6 2019

Publication series

NamePEDG 2019 - 2019 IEEE 10th International Symposium on Power Electronics for Distributed Generation Systems

Conference

Conference10th IEEE International Symposium on Power Electronics for Distributed Generation Systems, PEDG 2019
Country/TerritoryChina
CityXi'an
Period06/3/1906/6/19

Keywords

  • Grid-following
  • Microgrid
  • PV inverter
  • Volt-var
  • Voltage regulation

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