Customer-Side voltage regulation to mitigate PV-induced power quality problems in radial distribution networks

This study illustrates the effectiveness of customer-side voltage regulation in unbalanced four-wire distribution networks, under increasing levels of distributed generation, with the overarching aim of reducing voltage magnitude and voltage unbalance violations. To this aim a series of single-phase voltage regulator (VR) devices are proposed to be installed between point of common coupling (PCC) and the customer point of access (PoA). A VR placement algorithm is developed to identify the optimum locations and sizing of the VR devices considering network constraints. Furthermore, a techno-economical analysing is carried out on a real four-wire distribution network in Australia using real load data to evaluate the performance of the VR implementation. The network is tested with different Solar Photovoltaic (PV) penetration levels from 30 to 100 percent, utilising three different loads models-constant power, constant impedance and an equal impedance-power ratio. The simulation results show that the proposed VR methodology is effective in addressing voltage magnitude and unbalance violations for most of the PV penetration levels.