Improving Photovoltaic Hosting Capacity of Distribution Networks with Coordinated Inverter Control -- A Case Study of the EPRI J1 Feeder

Abstract: Adding photovoltaic (PV) systems in distribution networks, while desirable for reducing the carbon footprint, can lead to voltage violations under high solar-low load conditions. The inability of traditional volt-VAr control in eliminating all the violations is also well-known. This paper presents a novel coordinated inverter control methodology that leverages system-wide situational awareness to significantly improve hosting capacity (HC). The methodology employs a real-time voltage-reactive power (VQ) sensitivity matrix in an iterative linear optimizer to calculate the minimum reactive power intervention from PV inverters needed for mitigating over-voltage without resorting to active power curtailing or requiring step voltage regulator setting changes. The algorithm is validated using the EPRI J1 feeder under an extensive set of realistic use cases and is shown to provide 3x improvement in HC under all scenarios.