Reactive power control on residential utility-interactive PV power systems

This paper aims to optimize the reactive power absorbed by residential Photovoltaic (PV) power systems interactive with a utility feeder. Therefore, a proposed algorithm has been introduced here to assess the optimal size and location of static VAR compensator (SVC) at different operation conditions of residential PV systems. In this algorithm, a three-phase load flow analysis is used to calculate the size of SVC at different penetration levels and methods of operating PV systems, inverter power factors and load profiles to realize the substation power factor as well as PV penetration level is zero. Also, this size is optimized according to the locations to improve the voltage regulation and losses on the study feeder. The proposed algorithm is applied to develop the SVC size and location on an Egyptian utility feeder-interactive residential PV system at a constant value of power factor at the substation. Also, the effect of total reactive power on the feeder voltage and losses are deduced at different PV systems operation conditions. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.