Scheduling of PV inverter reactive power set-point and battery charge/discharge profile for voltage regulation in low voltage networks

In recent years, renewable energies and storage systems are bringing a significant contribution to power system. Due to the high penetration of non-predictable power sources, especially in the distribution networks, new challenges related to the integration and management of these new resources also combined with storage systems arose in power system research. Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to propose an innovative scheduling method for voltage regulation in low voltage networks. A simple type of contract for ancillary services that foresees the participation of active users endowed with a storage system coupled with a PV system is considered. The method allows to regulate the voltage in a distribution system by using a combined PV and storage system. The voltage regulation is achieved by setting the value of the inverter reactive power on the basis of sensitivity coefficients of the considered node, taking into account the capability curve constrains, as required by new grid codes. A possible tariff policy is also proposed for the ancillary service and for the operation of the realization of the scheduling algorithm. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method for the scheduling of the power system.