Reducing voltage fluctuations using DSTATCOMs and reactive power of PV inverters in a medium voltage distribution system

Abstract

This paper proposes local reactive power control to mitigate the voltage fluctuation in medium-voltage systems using DSTATCOMs and photovoltaic (PV) inverters. New expressions are developed to estimate voltage fluctuations and reactive power compensations by transforming line segment power-flow variables into nodal power injections. Using local measurements of voltages and solar powers, the method can provide a fast estimation of reactive power compensations to maintain the voltage at every bus. DSTATCOMs are also properly allocated to enhance the voltage controllability. Coordinated control of multiple reactive power resources is investigated as well. One-second solar irradiance along with one-minute home loads is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Keywords

• voltage control
• invertors
• static var compensators
• reactive power control
• photovoltaic power systems
• power distribution control
• compensation
• load flow
• voltage measurement
• power measurement
• controllability
• power generation control
• pv inverters
• medium voltage distribution system
• local reactive power control
• medium-voltage systems
• photovoltaic inverters
• nodal power injections
• voltage controllability
• multiple reactive power resources
• voltage fluctuation reduction
• dstatcom
• line segment power-flow variable transformation
• voltage measurement
• solar power measurement
• reactive power compensation estimation
• voltage controllability enhancement
• coordinated control