A power quality monitor system for quantifying the effects of photovoltaic penetration on the grid

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effects, on the grid's power quality, of the transient insolation events and the inverter AC output power quality when high penetration of small sized photovoltaic (PV) is installed in low voltage distribution networks. To that end, a real world case study has been conducted. A power quality monitor system (PQMS) has been designed to facilitate the study. The PQMS has been designed to provide quantitative (long term high resolution) data on transient events that might occur in the inverter's AC and DC environments and to determine how these conditions impact the grid. The data has been monitored continously by a power quality analyzer every 200 ms for four months, and stored on a local server for analysis. The designed PQMS is able to handle the massive data storage, analysis and visualization for the obtained observations. The case study helps the local distribution companies (LDCs) to better evaluate the effects of PV power generation on the grid and verify whether claims of compliance by inverter manufacturers prove true in real world testing. These conclusions can only be drawn by evaluating real world test scenarios and empirical data assist in the process by providing both of these to the LDCs.