Quasi-Steady-State computation of voltage flicker with cloud motion simulator

Renewable Energy Resources (RER), especially wind and solar energy resources, have been growing steadily, and supplying all electric power needs from renewable resources appears more achievable than ever. Solar energy has had the greatest growth rate among renewable energy resources in recent years. The main challenge of employing Photovoltaic (PV) systems is the intermittent nature of solar energy. The irradiance variations are mainly caused by cloud movements and the associated shadows moving over solar arrays. Thus, when considering high PV penetration, simulation of cloud shadow movement and its effect on the power system is of interest. In this work a Cloud Motion Simulator (CMS) that incorporates Quasi-Steady-State (QSS) power flow analysis is introduced. Moreover, short-term flicker severity based on the IEEE 1453-2015 standard is computed by the CMS, and the use of this standard is discussed. The effect of CMS parameters - cloud speed, number of clouds, width of clouds, and time interval between clouds - on short-term flicker is also investigated.