Photovoltaic Fleet Aggregation and High Penetration: A Feeder Test Case

The Intermittency in photovoltaic (PV) systems power output is always a concern for power utility companies especially at high level of penetration. Spatial distribution of PV could provide a reduced Intermittency usually referred to as geographic smoothing. This paper presents a case study of six PV systems using the weather parameters from six locations in Florida. A simple correlation study of the global horizontal irradiance (GHI) and ambient temperature of PV systems location is done and pairs of PV as well as the aggregation of the entire six fleet is integrated to an IEEE 13 bus distribution feeder. The voltage profile, and the voltage regulator switching were analysed with different combinations of pairs of PV aggregation and also the aggregation of the entire PV fleet. The results show a significant reduction in the fluctuations in the voltage profile and switching of the voltage regulator control for different combination of aggregated PVs. This study is expected to provide insight on how the aggregation of PV in different locations (with differing GHI and temperature correlation values) can be used to achieve a reduction in voltage fluctuations as well the switching of the voltage regulating devices in high PV penetration scenarios.