Impact of Grid-Connected PV systems on voltage regulation of a residential area network in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The main objective of the presented work is to investigate the effect of Grid-Connected Photovoltaic systems on the voltage regulation of a residential electricity network in Saudi Arabia. Firstly, a typical residential network is used as the base case. Actual data for both loads and irradiance has been used to build a realistic model. Then, two main situations are set up for peak and light load conditions. Thereafter, the voltage profile has been determined for critical nodes in the network with and without different capacity of PV integration in order to define the problem. Finally, the solutions are proposed and verified through the simulation package. The results indicate that even at very high penetrations of PV, network voltage rises are small and can be mitigated by only modest changes in the current network. This paper gives a strong motivation to use such systems for such type of networks.