Mitigation of PV Voltage Fluctuations using Adaptive Moving Average and Volt-var Control

Abstract

Voltage fluctuations caused by photovoltaic power variability might become a severe problem at high levels of photovoltaic penetration in distribution networks. In this paper one active power approach and one reactive power approach are implemented to mitigate the voltage fluctuations caused by a multi-megawatt PV system integrated into a distribution system. Quasi-Static Time Series simulations are performed using OpenDSS and Python to assess the performance of each approach and to compare them in terms of the accumulated tap operations executed by the voltage regulators held by the distribution system at the end of the day. Results of simulations demonstrate that, although more complex, the active power approach is the most effective.