Power Electronics Assisted Voltage Regulator: An Effective Solution for Mitigating Voltage Variations Caused by High Penetration PV on a Distribution System

The ever-increasing levels of distributed energy resources (DERs), especially solar photovoltaics (PV) tend to detrimentally affect the operation of the distribution systems on which they are installed, causing issues like voltage violations, excessive voltage regulator operations, voltage flicker, etc. Recent improvements in power electronics have led to an increase in the proliferation of power electronics based voltage regulators that are capable of fast voltage compensation. However, being a recent addition, very few studies exist that quantify the benefits of such devices on a distribution system. This work uses a case study to quantify the main benefits of a power electronics assisted voltage regulator (PEVR) in mitigating the impacts of high penetration PV using a supervisory control scheme for the PEVR. This study considers high resolution (1 second) PV and load profiles to capture the accurate operation of the step voltage regulator (SVR) and PEVR. The results from this case study highlight the effectiveness of a PEVR in mitigating excessive voltage variation and tap operations due to high penetration PV. The results also illustrate the trade-off between converter capacity and benefits.