Voltage Profile and Stability Analysis for High Penetration Solar Photovoltaics

The enormous amount of energy from sun has led to a rapid growth of the use of Solar Photovoltaic power. The solar PV power can be used in stand-alone, grid connected, and hybrid configurations. Grid connected solar PV power plants are huge and are increasing rapidly because of the diminishing of conventional fossil fuels’ resources for power generation. The solar PV power plants are connected to existing power system at transmission and distribution levels. This solar PV power integration is likely to have impacts on the power system. The steady state impacts of integrating solar PV power were studied on an IEEE 9 Bus test system. Impacts on voltage levels and profile, voltage drop, voltage stability, line losses and loading of the system were studied. A comparative analysis of system without solar PV power, with PV power and different levels of penetration of solar PV power was done with the aid of a power system software namely ETAP. The study revealed that the integration of solar PV power improves the voltage levels and drops and voltage stability. However, the increase in level of penetration beyond a certain point had negative impacts on the power system i.e. worsening of voltage profile, increase of losses which can also lead the system to become unstable. From this the hosting capacity (limit to which maximum power can be penetrated) of the system is determined.

Engr. Muhammad Adil Khan, Dr. Naeem Arbab, Engr. Zainab Huma, "Voltage Profile and Stability Analysis for High Penetration Solar Photovoltaics" International Journal of Engineering Works, Vol. 5, Issue 5, PP. 109-104, May 2018.

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