Pilot project to estimate the centralized volt/VAr control effectiveness

This paper describes a volt/VAr control (VVC) project in which a centralized network-model based VVC was put in place to control a 13.8 kV distribution subsystem. The goal of the project is to estimate the effectiveness of VVC based on different objective functions, including an objective function for future market economy (revenue maximization). The technical issues which are critical to implementing the VVC are discussed. The effectiveness of VVC for energy conservation and revenue maximization is calculated as an effect due to the immediate (within the span of a few minutes) load to voltage response. This effect is compared with the actual effect calculated based on a fifteen minutes average archived telemetered data.