Hosting capacity analysis of many distributed photovoltaic systems in future distribution networks

Abstract

Installation of photovoltaic (PV) systems need to be accelerated much for the mitigation of climate change. This paper targets on huge penetration of distributed PV systems into feeders, of which the total PV capacity is several or several ten times of the existing load. Three kinds of countermeasures, improvement of conductor sizes, partial boosting voltage, smart invertors, and their combinations were analyzed with the criteria of the PV hosting capacity. Simulation results suggested that, without PV reactive power control, the increase of the hosting capacity for improvement of conductor size and boosting voltage were limited because of voltage rise in low voltage networks. The combination of the three kinds of countermeasures were necessary for the huge penetration of distributed PV systems. In such cases, the voltage needed to drop in the middle voltage networks in order to compensate the voltage rise in low voltage networks.