Autonomous Voltage Regulation by Distributed PV Inverters With Minimal Inter-node Interference

The reactive power capability of distributed photovoltaic (PV) inverters could be exploited to mitigate voltage violations under high PV penetration in the distribution grid. Coordinating the reactive power dispatch of individual PV inverters to obtain desired voltage regulation performance is a major challenge. In this article, a decentralized method is proposed to enable PV inverters to autonomously regulate terminal node voltages. The proposed method minimizes the effect of a terminal node's reactive power contribution on the voltage profile of its respective parent-to-terminal node. This ensures that the interference between the voltage regulation of terminal nodes by individual PV inverters is minimized. The performance of the proposed decentralized scheme is verified by extensive powerflow simulations on the EPRI Circuit 24 test feeder in open-source distribution system simulation platform OpenDSS.

Automated summary

This article discusses the use of reactive power capability of distributed photovoltaic inverters to address voltage issues under high PV penetration, and proposes a decentralized method for autonomous voltage regulation of PV inverters.