Impact of PV Generation on Low Voltage Networks

Hairi M.H
University of Manchester
mohdhendra.hairi@postgrad.
manchester.ac.uk

Shaofan.Qi
University of Manchester
shaofan.qi@manchester.ac.uk


Haiyu Li
University of Manchester
haiyu.li@manchester.ac.uk


Dan Randles
Electricity North West Limited
dan.randles@enwl.co.uk

Abstract- The objective of the paper is to present the
performance of the single phase power electronic inverter-based
Photovoltaic (PV) system connected to the low voltage grid. The
PV model has been developed in PSCAD. The designed system
uses PV panel as the main source of energy, single phase voltage
source inverter (VSI) and low voltage power system network. In
this paper, a common independently P & Q control inverter
circuit at near unit power factor. The impact of PV resources on
LV network voltage has been analyzed. Furthermore, impact of
network fault on PV system has also been investigated and
discussed.
Index Terms--Photovoltaic, Distributed Generation, PV
system simulation, PV inverter, PV performance, Faults.

I. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, Distributed Generations (DGs), which can
be defined as small scale, dispersed, decentralized, and on-
site electric energy systems installation at the medium and
low-voltage distribution levels of the power system, has been
widely used due to its technical, economical, and
environmental benefits. Photovoltaic (PV) has the ability to
convert the sunlight to electricity using solar cells, is one of
the well established options for sustainable energy in the
future with the tremendous growth in the world's market
today. It is emerging due to demand for energy by the
residential and utility-scale markets as well as solar electricity
is clean, quiet, cheap and sustainable [1].
Nowadays, a large number of multi-MW PV power plants
are being planned or installed in several countries all over the
world. As the penetration of the PV plant increases, the
interconnection to the grid will carry various issues. Power
injection from the PV system will raise the voltage at the
power distribution line. In particular, voltage can exceed the
upper tolerance limit at the Point of Common Coupling
(PCC) [2]. In terms of power quality issues, short fluctuation
of irradiance, cloud cover and injected harmonic from the
inverter will affect the quality of power produced [3].
Furthermore the stability of the power system depends on PV
response to the fault by analysing voltage and frequency
response [4]. Also short circuit contribution from PV has
effects on the protective devices such as relay settings, bus
bar and circuit breakers rating [5]. Thus, the impact of PV
generation on the system voltage, power quality, response to
the faults and short circuit contribution to the grid needs to be
well understood in order to achieve safe and practical
operational interconnection of PV inverter generators.
This paper describes modelling of a single phase PV
system with active and reactive power control strategy. The
data has been analyzed to study the PV performance and its
impact on low voltage networks. The model has been
developed in PSCAD/EMTDC simulation software due to its
advantages of flexibility and efficiency i.e. fast execution
time and reliable.

II. PHOTOVOLTAIC GENERATION
Fig.1(a) shows a single phase inverter PV generation
system connected to a grid. Fig. 1(b) represent its phase
diagram for all the fundamental components of the inverter
output voltage V
inv
, inverter output current I
L
, through the
coupling inductance L, inductor voltage V
L
, and the grid
voltage V
grid
. The phase displacement between the grid
voltage and the fundamental component of inverter output
voltage is represented by angle (), and ( ) is the phase
difference between grid voltage V
grid
and inverter output
current I
L.




(a)

(b)

Fig 1. Single-phase PV generator. (a) PV Inverter model. (b) Phase diagram

As shown in Fig. 1(b), it can be realize that the active and
reactive power outputs provided by the inverter to the grid
can be expressed as (1) and (2) [6].

P =
v
grid
o.L
. I
n
. sin (1)

=
v
grid
o.L
(I
n
. cos - I
gd
) (2)

Equation (1) shows the dependence of P on the power
angle (). The real power output of the inverter is a function
of the power angle () between the fundamental component
of the inverter output voltage and the grid voltage. A positive
phase shift of () will result the inverter output voltage leads
the grid voltage, hence real power is exported to the grid.
From (2), it can be noted that the reactive power Q depends
on the difference between the inverter and the grid output
voltage magnitude. If the inverter output voltage is higher
than the grid voltage, the reactive power will flow from the
inverter to the grid and the inverter absorbs reactive power if
the inverter output voltage is lower than grid voltage.

III. PV MODEL & CONTROL METHOD
The single line diagram of a PV system connected to
typical LV network [7] is shown in Fig 2. The PV system
consists of a PV source, a voltage source inverter, a single
phase transformer and a low voltage power grid with loads.
The PV source can be modeled as a battery that supplies
direct current to the LV network.
The single phase PV is capable of supplying an average
power of 50 kW to the grid. The three phase grid line to line
voltage is considered to be 415V. The transformer has the
turn ratio of 1:1 and the single line to ground voltage is 240V.
The battery is set up to generate DC voltage up to 1500V.
The system diagram is shown in Fig. 3. The amount of real
power injection from the PV panel to the grid is controlled by
the phase of the generated PWM (ac) voltage via the
controller action.

Fig 2. Single line diagram of the PV model and the controller.
A. Photovoltaic Model
The photovoltaic panel is modeled as a constant DC
voltage source along with voltage source inverter to produce
AC power to the network. The voltage source inverter is
made of four IGBTs with harmonic reduction filter as shown
in Fig 3. The method of producing AC waveform is achieved
by using sinusoidal generator in gate pulse generation block
as in Fig 3. Single phase sine waves frequency of 50Hz are
generated. The switching signals, also known as sinusoidal
pulse width modulation (SPWM), are generated from the
amplitude comparison of variable magnitude sinusoidal signal
(modulating signal) with high frequency fixed-magnitude
triangular signal (carrier signal). The switching frequency
needs to be in the region in kHz in order to eliminate higher
order harmonics. Also the control system block is shown in
Fig 3. By adjusting the variable magnitude and the phase
angle of sinusoidal modulating signal, power flow from the
inverter can be controlled [8].

B. Control System
A typical power and reactive power controller was
implemented. It is well known that the amount of real and
reactive power exchange between the inverter and the power
grid can be adjusted by controlling the phase angle and the
magnitude of inverter output voltage with respect to system
voltage. By controlling the modulation index therefore
controls the amplitude of the applied output voltage, and by
adjusting the modulation phase angle, real power can be
controlled [8]. Two separate PI controllers are integrated with
the inverter to automatically adjust the modulating signals to
control the switching pulse width and switching instance. One
of the PI control loop in Fig 3. controls the phase angle to
regulate the active power, whereas the other control loop is
used to regulated reactive power at zero, that is, the Voltage
Source Inverter (VSI) system operates at unity power factor.

IV. SIMULATION ANALYSIS
A. Control performance

The performance of the single phase grid connected PV
under P and Q control conditions has been conducted using
PSCAD/EMTDC and the results are shown in Fig 4-9.
Initially the PV is set to inject 10 kW to the grid and at
t=3sec, the injected power is increased to 40kW while Q is set
to zero to maintain at unity power factor. The output real
power and reactive power response are shown in Fig 4. It is
clear that both real and reactive output of the PV level are
controlled to reach the desired value. The PV was connected
at phase C of the grid and the RMS voltage shows an
increasing voltage at Point of Common Coupling (PCC).
Further increasing the injected power by the PV will result
increase more in RMS voltage compared to phase B and C
(without PV connection) as shown in Fig 5. Fig 6 shows the
percentage of voltage increases versus injected power from
PV. and Fig 7 shows the phasor diagram for corresponding
phase voltages. The simulation was repeated again with P=0
and Q=10kVar, and at t=3sec, the injected Q has been
increased to 40kVar and the results is shown in Fig 8-9. The
RMS voltage remains at 234V for all three phases and only
small increase in voltage at any particular phase due the line
was resistive.

Fig 3. PV model with corresponding blocks.

Fig 4. PV real and reactive power

Fig 5. RMS phase a, b and c voltage.

Fig 6. Injected PV real power versus voltage at PCC

Fig 7.Phasor diagram for corresponding phase voltage.
PV real and reactive power outputs
t(sec)
0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0
-60
-40
-20
0
20
40
60
80
100
k
W
,

k
V
a
r
Q P
RMSPhase Voltages

0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0
0.200
0.210
0.220
0.230
0.240
0.250
V
o
l
t
s
(
k
V
)
E3rms(withPV) E3brms(without PV) E3arms(without PV)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
0.3 0.8 1.3 1.8 2.2
k
W
%
Injected power vs voltage

Fig 8. PV real and reactive power

Fig 9. RMS phase voltage.


B. Fault conditions

For fault analysis, single phase line to ground fault was
applied to bus 1, bus 2 and bus 3 at t=4sec, t=6sec and t=8sec
respectively, for 0.1s, the simulated results are shown in Fig.
10. The PV is supplying 50kW of real power, reactive power
is set to zero to maintain unity power factor. The fault was
applied again when the PV is supplying 20kW of real power.
The result is shown in Fig 11.


(a)

(b)

(c)
Fig 10: PV inverter response to a single line to ground fault at P=50kW;(a)-
real and reactive power,(b)-inverter current,(c) fault current contribution
from PV and Grid


(a)

(b)
PV real and reactive power outputs
t(sec)
0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0
-80
-60
-40
-20
0
20
40
60
80
k
W
,

k
V
a
r
Q P
RMSPhase Voltages
t(sec)
0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0
0.200
0.210
0.220
0.230
0.240
0.250
V
o
l
t
s
(
k
V
)
E3rms(with PV) E3brms(without PV) E3arms(without PV)
PV real and reactive power outputs
t(sec)
1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 10.0 11.0
-200
-150
-100
-50
0
50
100
150
200
250
k
W
,

k
V
a
r
Q P
inverter fault current responce
t(sec)
3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0
-2.50
-2.00
-1.50
-1.00
-0.50
0.00
0.50
1.00
1.50
2.00
2.50
c
u
r
r
e
n
t
(
k
A
)
iinv
1.358
2.404
1.188
13.404
8.319
6.044
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
1 2 3
C
u
r
r
e
n
t

(
k
A
)
Bus
Fault Current(Max)
PV
Grid
PV real and reactive power outputs
t(sec)
3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0
-40
-20
0
20
40
60
80
100
k
W
,

k
V
a
r
Q P
inverter fault current responce
t(sec)
3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0
-1.50
-1.00
-0.50
0.00
0.50
1.00
1.50
c
u
r
r
e
n
t
(
k
A
)
iinv

(c)
Fig 11: PV inverter response to a single line to ground fault at P=20kW;(a)-
real and reactive power,(b)-inverter current,(c) fault current contribution
from PV and Grid

During fault condition, the active and reactive power
oscillates significantly when inverter is supplying 50kW of
real power compared to small oscillations during 20kW real
power injection from PV as shown in Fig 10(a) and Fig 11(a).
From Fig 10(c), it can be seen that when the inverter is
injecting 50kW of power, the fault current contribution from
PV is 2.404kA, which is the maximum value when fault
occurred at bus 2, whereas the values are 1.358kA and
1.188kA for bus 1 and bus 3 respectively. In contrast, fault
current levels from grid is much more higher compared to
PV. The values are up to 13.404kA at bus 1, followed by
8.319kA at bus 2 and 6.044kA at bus 3. This is due the utility
sources or on-site energy sources, such as on-site generation,
are the major short-circuit current contributors. Also, it is
clear that fault level is higher when the location of the fault
occur near the power source.
On the contrary, in the case of P=20kW, fault current
contribution from PV is lower compared to the case when PV
is supplying 50kW of power as illustrated in Fig 11(c). The
values are 0.64kA, 0.76kA and 0.574kA for fault at bus 1,2
and 3 respectively whereas for grid fault current contribution,
the values are almost the same in both conditions.

V. CONCLUSION
This paper presents a model of single phase grid connected
PV with active and reactive power control strategy for
transient analysis. The model has been developed in
PSCAD/EMTDC software package and its dynamic response
during fault was presented. The simulation results showed
that the PV will cause voltage rise at low-load conditions due
to excess power injection by PV. Q injection from PV has
very little effect on the phase voltage due to the line was
resistive. Also fault current contribution from PV is small
compared to grid because it is strongly related to power
electronic based DGs design and low inertia generations.
After fault was removed, all the parameters of the PV are
restored to their pre-fault values.


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0.64 0.76 0.574
13.444
8.386
6.112
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
1 2 3
C
u
r
r
e
n
t

(
k
A
)
Bus
Fault Current(Max)
PV
Grid