Coordination of PV Inverters and Voltage Regulators Considering Generation Correlation and Voltage Quality Constraints for Loss Minimization

Distributed generation sources (DGs) are widely considered as important sources of power generation in distribution systems during the last few decades. Despite the substantial benefits of DGs, increasing the penetration level of the DGs can cause dramatic voltage magnitude fluctuations. Coordination of the use of dynamic reactive power sources such as photovoltaic (PV) inverters and voltage control equipment can mitigate rapid voltage magnitude fluctuations. A coordinated volt-var control method is proposed herein to achieve the optimal expected performance (e.g., system losses) while considering the spatial correlation among PV source powers and constraining the variability of voltage magnitudes throughout the distribution network within permissible ranges. The proposed strategy formulates chance constraints on the voltage magnitude and considers the uncertainty of PV power injections over the interval of interest to maintain voltage magnitudes within acceptable limits. The proposed method has been tested on the IEEE 123-node radial distribution system for validation. Moreover, the simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method can effectively mitigate the fast voltage magnitude deviations with an acceptable reduction in system losses in the presence of intermittent renewable resources.