Estimation of PV Location in Distribution Systems based on Voltage Sensitivities

This paper describes an efficient method to determine the location of solar PV systems in distribution circuits, based on voltage magnitude measurement streams. The method leverages the impact of solar injection variations on the circuit voltages. The estimation model enables recovering the most likely location of PV system based on the distribution system model and voltage magnitude measurements. The method is tested for the cases of 3-phase and 1-phase PV systems. A metric for the goodness of the estimation methods is proposed. Simulations on the IEEE 13-bus radial distribution feeder demonstrate the ability of the method to provide consistent estimation of PV locations.