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Grid Integration Aspects of Large Solar PV Installations: LVRT Capability and Reactive Power/voltage Support Requirements
Grid Integration Aspects of Large Solar PV Installations: LVRT Capability and Reactive Power/voltage Support Requirements
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Abstract--The current work focuses on two specific issues the utility network. The first issue is the Fault Ride-Through
concerning grid-connected solar PV units, i.e. the fault ride- (FRT) or Low Voltage Ride-Through (LVRT) capability,
through capability, also called low voltage ride-through defined as the PV inverters' capability of remaining connected
capability, and the voltage support function through reactive to the grid in the event of grid failures, of not supplying any
power injection during faults. With the first one the PV unit can
actually provide some limited grid support, whereas with a active power during a grid fault, and of delivering active
defined reactive power characteristic it can give a complete power directly after clearing the fault, thus stabilizing the grid.
dynamic grid support. These two requirements, already known The second aspect is also related to LVRT, but it refers to the
for wind power generation but new for the PV, have been additional capability of injecting reactive power in the grid in
recently introduced in the German technical guidelines for case of grid fault, with the purpose to give a voltage support
connection to the MV grid. Scope of the paper is to implement during fault conditions.
these requirements in a large solar PV plant, modeled in
DIgSILENT PowerFactory, in order to understand its operation,
Initially, an investigation on new requirements for PV
and to evaluate its behavior and impact on the grid, in terms of power plants is done. These requirements are quite similar to
stability and voltage support during grid fault. the current Grid Code (GC) requirements for wind power
plants. However, the only existing legislation in effect, that
Index Terms—Photovoltaic systems, reactive power control, refers to technical guidelines and requirements specifically
solar power generation, voltage control. for PV interconnection is the German GC [1]-[2].
An evaluation of a solar PV power plant with fault ride-
through capability and reactive power support in dynamic
I. INTRODUCTION conditions in case of grid faults is performed. The control
978-1-4244-8417-1/11/$26.00 ©2011
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TABLE I
FORMULATION OF SCENARIOS
3) Scenario #3
B. Results of simulations and discussion
The fault reactance is set to 2.2 ȍ, leading to a voltage dip
In the following paragraphs the results from all simulated of 0.506 pu. The LV value is 0.492 pu, and the MV value
scenarios are shortly presented and discussed. However, due 0.432 pu. The difference is 0.06 pu, that is the voltage drop in
to space limitations only four of the nine in total scenarios are the transformer’s reactance. In this case the reference value of
illustrated in figures. active and reactive current is respectively 0 and 1 pu, and this
The PV plant operates in steady-state providing 448.8 kW fully satisfies the GC. The injected reactive power in this case
of active power at MPP and almost zero reactive power. The is 246 kVar, almost double than the previous scenario.
voltage at the LV bus is 0.99 pu and at the MV bus is constant
1 pu. At time t=0s a three phase short circuit occurs at the MV
bus and is cleared after 500ms. The behaviour of the PV
power plant for the voltage dips in the MV and the LV buses
caused by the short circuit is evaluated.
Varying the value of the fault reactance different voltage
dips are created in order to study the behaviour of the PV plant
for various voltage dip magnitudes. Different control
strategies regarding the voltage support for the PV plant are
also studied, by varying the droop value of the Vdc controller.
For all simulations the following variables are recorded
during the fault (in parenthesis the colour of the line in the
respective figure): voltage at the MV bus (red), voltage at the
LV bus (green), AC voltage dip (magenta), active (red) and
reactive (cyan) power injected from the PV plant, and active
(green) and reactive (magenta) current reference. For the Fig. 8. Scenario #1: 0.5 MVA Solar PV plant, three phase fault at MV bus.
Voltage values during the voltage dip.
second group of scenarios for the large PV park, the plotted
results for the active and reactive power regard only one single
0.5 MVA unit. The main parameters of the PV plant model,
are given in the Appendix.
1) Scenario #1
In this case in the LV bus the voltage dip is around 0.76 pu,
while it is a bit higher in the MV bus, around 0.8 pu (Fig.8).
This is due to the presence of the transformer. In this case the
reference value of active and reactive current, Idref and Iqref
are respectively 0.241 pu and 0.759 pu. The injected values of
active and reactive power are 28.6 kW and 91.789 kVar (Fig.
9). It is important to note that the values of power are
influenced not only by the reference values of currents, but
also by the voltage value on the LV bus.
This behaviour has to be improved to meet the GC
requirements. In fact, this plant satisfies the German LVRT Fig. 9. Scenario #1: 0.5 MVA Solar PV plant, three phase fault at MV bus.
requirement, as it is shown in Fig. 1, but doesn’t satisfy the Injected active and reactive power and current references.
voltage support requirement through injection of reactive
current. In case of voltage dip larger than 0.5 pu, the GC
requires 1 pu of reactive current, and consequently 0 pu of
active current. In this case this requirement is not satisfied.
2) Scenario #2
To change the above behavior of the PV plant the value of
droop in the Vdc controller is increased from 1 to 2 pu. In this
case the voltage dips are a bit lower than in the first
simulation, around 0.745 pu, because more reactive power is
injected (Fig. 10). The Vdc controller sets the reference value
of active and reactive current respectively at 0 and 1 pu,
according to the GC requirements. The reactive power injected
is around 127 kVar, about 35% higher than the first case (Fig.
11). This increases by 0.015 pu the LV value, but does not
influence the MV value. Fig. 10. Scenario #2: 0.5 MVA Solar PV plant, three phase fault at MV bus.
Voltage values during the voltage dip.
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VI. APPENDIX
Parameters of the 0.5 MVA PV plant model. These are the
values entered in the respective blocks in DSL.
Vdc Controller
Tr Active power measurement delay 0.001 [s]
Kp Gain, active power PI controller 0.005
Tip Integration time constant, 0.03 [s]
active power PI controller
Deadband for AC voltage support 0.1 [pu]
Fig. 15. Scenario #9: 20 MVA Solar PV plant, three phase fault at MV bus. Droop static for AC voltage 1 [pu]
Injected active and reactive power and current references. support
Idmin minimum active current limit 0 [pu]
V. CONCLUSIONS Idmax maximum active current limit 1 [pu]
In this paper, a review about the current European grid Iqmin minimum reactive current limit -1 [pu]
codes in the field of photovoltaic applications is done. These Iqmax maximum reactive current limit 1 [pu]
grid codes, currently existing only in Germany and partially in maxAbsCur maximum allowed absolute 1 [pu]
Spain, provide the technical requirements to permit a higher current
penetration of unconventional power sources into the grid. maxIq Maximum absolute reactive 1 [pu]
The development and simulation study of a PV plant model current in normal operation
8
[3] Total PV installed capacity until 2010/11/30 from SMA website, based
on data from the Database of the German Federal Energy Agency.
PLL Available online: http://www.sma.de/en/news-information/pv-electricity-
Controller Gain 1 produced-in-germany.html
Integration Gain 0.1 [4] Grid Code: High and Extra High Voltage, E.ON Netz GmbH, Bayreuth,
April 2006.
Upper frequency limit 1.2 [5] Requisitos técnicos de las instalaciones eólicas, fotovoltaicas y todas
Lower frequency limit 0.8 aquellas instalaciones de producción cuya tecnología no emplee un
generador síncrono conectado directamente a la red, Draft copy of
PO 12.2, October 2008, Spain.
VII. REFERENCES [6] DIgSILENT Power Factory, www.digsilent.de
[1] Technical Guideline: Generating Plants Connected to the Medium- [7] A.V. Timbus, T. Teodorescu, F. Blaabjerg, M. Liserre, P. Rodriguez,
Voltage Network, Bundesverband der Energie- und Wasserwirtschaft "PLL Algorithm for Power Generation Systems Robust to Grid Voltage
e.V., BDEW, June 2008. Faults," 37th IEEE Power Electronics Specialists Conference, 2006.
[2] Supplement to the Guideline on „Generating Plants Connected to the PESC '06, pp.1-7, 18-22 June 2006.
Medium-Voltage Network“ (June 2008 edition), BDEW, January 2009.