Simulation of Integrated Volt/VAR Control for PV
Penetration Studies
Daixi Li and David L. Lubkeman
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27606
Abstract—Delivering voltage within suitable range to the cus-
tomers is one of utility’s responsibilities. To keep voltage within
ANSI C84.1 limits, utilities have different voltage regulation tech-
niques, and Volt/VAR control is one commonly used approach in
distribution systems.The objective of this paper is to explore the
topic related to the voltage control of electric power distribution
circuits with high penetration levels of distributed photovoltaic
(PV) power systems. An Integrated Volt/VAR Control (IVVC)
model is developed for use with the Open Distribution System
Simulator (OpenDSS) simulation platform for emulating the
effectiveness of centralized controls on mitigating distributed
photovoltaic system voltage impacts. The test results of the IVVC
control prove that the proposed control can successfully keep
the voltage within the tight target voltage range, for applications
such as Conservation Voltage Reduction (CVR). A utility-scale
distribution feeder is used as the test circuit for this study.
Index Terms—Distribution Circuit Simulation, OpenDSS, PV
System Penetration Analysis, Volt/VAR Control.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Most utilities in the United States follow the ANSI C84.1
standard [1], which defines the allowable operational voltage
range for utilization voltage and service voltage. It is the
utility’s responsibility to maintain the service entrance voltage
within service range [2]. Some utilities would keep the voltage
in an even tighter range for implementing CVR. To keep volt-
age within acceptable tolerance, utilities have different voltage
regulation techniques, and centralized Volt/VAR control is one
commonly used approach in distribution systems. Researchers
have proposed different kinds of Volt/VAR algorithms [3]–
[5]. However, most of those controls require modeling the test
circuits and integrating power flow models into the control
algorithm.
Photovoltaics (PV) integration to the power system has
grown exponentially in recent years which raises technical
concerns about adverse impacts of PV on distribution systems.
Firstly, PV power output is subject to irradiance fluctuations
due to cloud movements, which results in output power
variability. Highly variable PV power being injected into the
system will create intermittent voltage problems. Secondly,
PV interconnection can cause over-voltage problems near PV
connection buses. Then, there is also a problem with reverse
flow of power. In a conventional distribution system, power
flows unidirectionally from substation to customers. With high
levels of PV integration, power may flow backwards which
creates challenges with legacy circuit designs and control
techniques.
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Quasi-static time series (QSTS) simulation, supported by
software such as OpenDSS, facilitates a more detailed time-
domain distribution study by providing the capability to see the
dynamic interaction between control devices under different
timeframes. There have been a number of papers published
on PV impact studies, flicker problems and inverter control
based on QSTS simulation [6]–[12]. Yet, there is a lack of
a viable Integrated Volt/VAR Control simulation scheme for
properly modeling Volt/VAR interaction with PV penetration,
which could be implemented with OpenDSS time-series study.
This paper proposes an Integrated Volt/VAR Control simu-
lation that can be used in conjunction with OpenDSS which
emulates the behavior of control schemes utilities might be
deploying in practice. The following sections describe the
additional logic needed for such a simulation. Examples are
provided using a typical utility distribution circuit.
II. C ONTROL M ETHOD D ESCRIPTION
The control utilizes a hybrid capacitor banks (CAPs)/Load
Tap Changer (LTC)/Line Voltage Regulator (LVR) technology.
The objective of the control is to minimize circuit losses,
substation VAR flow and keep circuit voltage profiles within
the desired ranges. The proposed approach is to choose a
control action at each timestep which minimizes the defined
objective function. Equations (1) - (2) describe the objective
function in the control, where A is the weighting factor for
circuit loss, CircuitLoss is circuit kW loss at a given time
step, and B is the load weighting factor for the selected pilot
points. Verror is an array calculated using the absolute voltage
deviations from the upper and lower limits. The expected
outcome of the proposed control is that the voltages stay
within chosen bandwidth and substation VAR measurement
to be close to zero.
Obj=A · CircuitLoss + B · Verror (1)
Verror =VBus − Vupper limit + Vlower limit − VBus (2)
A. Volt/VAR Control Modeling Procedure
The flow chart of the control is shown in Fig. 1. Results
from the power flow are collected at the beginning of each
timestep, including the circuit losses, the measurement of
voltages and substation VARs, and the initial state of each
control device. Depending on the number of regulators, test
circuits can be divided into several voltage control zones. The
measured voltages from pilot points are processed and divided
into groups based on the zone of the buses. In reality, multiple TABLE I
voltage regulate devices will have different time delays in VOLTAGE C ONSTRAINTS USED IN THE C ONTROL
order to coordinate with one another. In this control, time delay Voltage Limit Lower Limit Upper Limit
is modeled as priority of a voltage regulation device. When CVR bandwidth 122V 124V
a tap change is in need for multiple regulators, the upstream Power Quality bandwidth 0.95 p.u. 1.05 p.u.
device will have higher priority over downstream device.
Control actions for voltage regulators are determined by
comparing voltage measurements with the chosen voltage
constraints. If voltages exceed the upper limit, the controller
will send a command to reduce a tap position. When the
lower voltage limit is violated, the control will indicate an
increase in the tap position. The three phases of the voltages
are being controlled independently for both substation LTC
and LVR. The tap which needs to be changed is selected by
a lookup table based on the phase of the voltage violation
and the control zone of the violation bus. Whenever a control
decision is determined and executed, the power flow will be
performed again, and a new value for objective function will
be calculated based on the new results from the power flow.
Capacitor banks are controlled in a slightly different way. VAR
flow at the substation is measured and used to compare with
control criteria. When Q > 12 Qrated , CAPs will receive
command for switch-in. When Q < − 34 Qrated , a CAP is
required to switch out. Unlike the voltage control, CAPs have
no pre-defined priority. Therefore, each available CAP will be
switched in/out (based on chosen control decision) to calculate
a new value for the objective function. At the end of each
timestep, all the possible values from previous calculations for
the objective function will be compared and the control action
which has the best impact on the circuit will be chosen. This Fig. 1. Flow Chart for the Proposed Volt/VAR Control
control procedure is called the base control procedure.

B. Additional Steps for Voltage Constraints
Table I specifies the two ranges for voltage constraints.
Keeping voltages within CVR bandwidth is the primary target
of the proposed control. Since CVR bandwidth is a relatively
tight range for voltages, there are cases where base control
procedure cannot keep the voltage within the CVR bandwidth
range; voltages at pilot points violate the two boundaries of
the CVR bandwidth simultaneously. Power Quality bandwidth
(i.e. the ANSI C84.1 standard) is introduced to deal with these
cases. Additional steps are designed and shown in Fig. 2.
When voltages are higher than 124V and lower than 122V,
we consider ANSI criteria (i.e. Power Quality bandwidth as
shown in Table I) as the new voltage constraints. If only one
limit is exceeded under the new constraints, voltage regulator
control follows the same steps as before: make corresponding
tap changes and calculate a new value for the objective
function. If the voltages at the pilot points violate the CVR
bandwidth but are still within the range of Power Quality
bandwidth, the load weighting factors of the buses that violated
the CVR bandwidth will be determined. The load weighting
factors times the voltage deviation from the upper limit of
CVR bandwidth will results in one value, and the product of
the load weighting factors and the voltage derivation from the
lower limit of CVR bandwidth will be a different value. By
comparing these two values, the control will decide whether
to reduce or increase the tap position. The higher result means
a more severe voltage violation, so it will be taken care first.
For instance, suppose bus k has 5 kW load and exceeds 124V
by 0.05 p.u., and another bus m has 3 kW with 0.02 p.u.
deviation from 122V. Given the results of bus k is larger (i.e.
0.25 > 0.06), one can come to the conclusion that the upper
limit violation is more severe. Thus, the chosen tap position
need to be reduced.
Unlike the previous base control procedure, voltage reg-
ulators are not selected by lookup table. Instead, every tap
controller will execute the chosen control decision which
results in a new set of values for the objective function.
The minimum of this set of values will be found and then
compared with the values of objective function resulted from
the base control procedure. Whichever value is the minimum,
the corresponding action will be taken as the action of this
timestep. In brief, only one control (or even none) is chosen at
each timestep. We choose the control action which minimizes
the objective function, because it brings the biggest benefits to
the system. There is no intentional delay for voltage regulators’
tap change or CAP switch action.
To ensure a fair comparison, the circuit is always reset
to an initial state after a new value of objective function is

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Fig. 2. Additional Steps when CVR bandwidth is violated
Fig. 3. Test feeder with the location of the LTC, LVR, Pilot Points and PV
calculated. Note that:
1) Regulator control: For each phase, the corresponding
phase of the voltage regulator is being controlled.
2) Choose only the best result of the Objective Function at
each step. If no control is needed, go to next timestep.
III. T EST C IRCUIT
A representative utility feeder circuit is used as testbed for
the proposed control scheme. It is an actual distribution circuit
with a nominal voltage of 12.47 kV. The main part of the
feeder is approximately 3 miles, with a summer peak demand
of 6.7 MW. The test feeder has a mix of commercial load and
residential load, while the majority of the load is residential.
Four shunt capacitors, with the same rating of 600 kVAR, are
connected to the feeder, and can be controlled to switch in
and out based on need.
There is one substation LTC and one line voltage regulator
in the test feeder. Two voltage regulating devices results in
two voltage control zones: Zone 1 is the voltage zone being
controlled by the substation LTC, while Zone 2 is monitored
by the LVR. The location of two devices are marked in Fig. 3.
Daily QSTS simulation is set up for testing the Volt/VAR
control. Simulation scenarios are listed as follows: 1. Base
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Fig. 4. PV Output Power: Sunny Day and Cloudy Day
case with no PV, 2. Sunny day with two MW-scale PV plants,
3. Cloudy day with two MW-scale PV plants. These cases
are daily simulation which utilize 15-minute load data and 1-
second resolution PV data. To have a better observation of
the control, 10-sec simulation resolution is chose for all the
test cases which means the system status is updated every
10 second and control makes decision accordingly. There are
8640 timesteps in each case.
Fig. 4 shows the PV profiles used in the simulation which
are 1-second resolution data from EPRI website. Simulation
is conducted using sunny day PV profile and cloudy day PV
profile respectively [13]. Load data are the peak summer day of
2014 taken from the yearly profile of the test feeder. Before
running any test cases, pilot points must be determined by
running a voltage study. The results of the voltage study show
that there are many low-voltages on Phase A.
IV. T EST R ESULTS
A. Case 1: Base Case
The base case has no PV interconnect to the test feeder.
Fig. 5 demonstrates that the Volt/VAR control has a good
performance, since mostly the voltages are kept between
122V and 124V. There are times when voltage exceeds CVR
bandwidth, but even in those cases, the overall voltages always
stay within Power Quality bandwidth.
The number of control actions for each case are summarized
in Table II. Phase A of the LVR has the most control actions
during the day. This is expected because Phase A has the most
low-voltage buses in the voltage study. Based on the loading
on each phase, phase B and phase C have similar loading,
whereas Phase A is more heavily loaded.
Fig. 6 plots the voltage at bus 2041 (Phase A) which is a
pilot point near the end of the feeder. In this plot, we can
have a better look at voltage variation due to different control
movements. We can find in Fig. 6 that the voltages are shifting
up and down because of tap changes. For example, around 6
am, there is a voltage drop at bus 2041 which is the result from
a tap position reduction on Phase A of the LTC. Also, some
spikes in voltage can be observed in Fig. 6 which are due to
interactions between different control devices. Fig. 7 illustrates
that the VAR measurement at the substation is following the
changes in the CAP operations. Whenever a CAP is switched
in, the CAP injects VARs into the circuit and the need of VARs
from the substation is reduced. That’s why we can see a drop
in substation VAR around noon.
 Fig. 5. Voltage Profile at Sample Pilot Points (Case 1) Fig. 8. Voltage Profile at Sample Pilot Points (Case 2)

Fig. 6. Voltage at Bus 2041 and Tap Changes of Phase A (Case 1)

Fig. 9. Voltage at bus 2041 and Tap Changes of Phase A (Case 2)

TABLE II
N UMBERS OF C ONTROL ACTIONS IN E ACH T EST C ASE

LTC LVR
Case # CAP A CAP B CAP C CAP D
A B C A B C
1 2 2 2 14 3 3 2 2 0 1
2 1 4 3 89 3 6 0 2 0 3
3 1 0 1 79 3 8 0 2 0 3

C. Case 3: Cloudy Day with PV

Fig. 7. Substation VAR Measurement and CAP Switching Actions (Case 1)

This case utilizes the cloudy day PV profile. The results

B. Case 2: Sunny Day with PV
Case 2 utilizes sunny day PV profile to simulate the control.
Fig. 8 shows the good performance of the voltage control
where voltages are mostly within the desired constraints. Yet,
there are some voltage oscillations during 16:00 and 20:00
which are caused by oscillations of regulators tap changes.
There are 89 tap operations at Phase A of the LVR (from
Table II). The excessive tap changes are due to implementing
the tight voltage constraints of “122V to 124V”. Further
discussion into these unnecessary tap changes is discussed
in subsection D. Voltage spikes due to control devices’ in-
teractions can still be observed from Fig. 9. Unlike voltage,
the VAR measurement shows the same trend without any
oscillation which is because PV injects only real power into the
circuit. Thus, reactive power is less affected by PV integration.
of this case show oscillations in tap controls and voltages
as well. There is no control cycling in the LTC. Still, Phase
A of the LVR has more than 70 tap changes. In Table II, a
total of 97 control actions take place in this single day. The
oscillations in tap controllers and voltages need to be fixed to
avoid unnecessary wear and tear of the tap changing devices.
We can also observe some voltage variation during 12:00 to
16:00 (see Fig. 10). These variations in voltages are due to
cloud movement during the same period. Unlike voltages, the
VAR flow through the substation is not greatly affected by PV.
In conclusion, the proposed control simulation managed to
keep the voltages and substation VAR close to the target.
Voltage variation caused by cloud is clearly shown in this
case. The oscillations in voltage regulator control still exists
for Case 3 and will be discussed in subsection D.

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Fig. 10. Voltage at bus 2041 and Tap Changes of Phase A (Case 3)
Fig. 11. Voltage at Bus 2041 and Tap Changes of Phase A (Case 4)
D. Improvement for PV Integrated Cases
There are several unnecessary tap changes on Phase A of the
LVR when PV systems are integrated into the feeder. Further
study shows that the cycling in control devices is due to the
control’s immediate response to tiny derivations in voltages.
These derivations are mostly smaller 10 × 10−5 p.u., however
based on control logic they are still considered to be out of
bandwidth. Thus, tap positions will be changed accordingly.
Yet this new tap position will incur a violation on the other
voltage boundary, which causes the tap to move back to its
initial setting. After this tap reset, the small deviations will
trigger a tap change again and this process will continue until
the control reaches a steady state. To solve this problem, the
voltage control should be made to be less sensitive to small
voltage violations. A margin of 8 × 10−4 is added to the tap
control logic, so that the control will not react to voltage
violations less than 8 × 10−4 p.u. Essentially, the cycling in
voltage control happens because the voltage bandwidth is too
tight. The problems will be gone if a wider bandwidth is used.
The sunny and cloudy PV cases are simulated again (Case
4 & 5). Results in Table III shows that the number of control
actions on Phase A of the LVR is greatly reduced. Fig. 11 also
proves that the cycling problems are solved in Case 4. Similar
findings can be obtained for the cloudy case with the added
control margin (Case 5).
Overall, we can conclude that the proposed amendment for
the voltage control is a good solution for the cycling effect
caused by PV integration. Reducing tap actions can extend the
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TABLE III
N UMBERS OF C ONTROL ACTIONS FOR THE I MPROVED C ASES
LTC LVR
Case # CAP A CAP B CAP C CAP D
A B C A B C
4 1 0 3 11 3 4 0 2 0 3
5 1 0 1 9 1 2 0 2 0 3
lifetime of a voltage regulation device. Thus, it is worthwhile
to relax the bandwidth with a small margin value in exchange
for the avoidance of those unnecessary control actions.
V. C ONCLUSION
The proposed emulation of the Integrated Volt/VAR Control
is tested on three different cases. The results proved that the
control is working as expected, and successfully augmenting
OpenDSS for quasi-static simulation of Volt/VAR control.
While the control successfully enables a tight bandwidth
(i.e. 122V to 124V) for voltages and keep power factor
at substation close to unity, it is observed that cycling in
regulator control exists when PV plants are interconnected.
An improvement is suggested to solve the problem, and the
test results for the altered control show that the number of
tap changes is reduced by approximately 82%. The proposed
control can provide a good starting point for us to simulate the
impact on PV penetration for distribution planning purposes.
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