PV Solar Integration Analysis and Overview: an Energy Transition Case Study in the Dominican Republic

PV power plants have achieved great technological targets, with the emergence of higher PV module performances, new power converter strategies, and the design of complex systems with solar tracking. In this way, new technological alternatives solve problems that conventional PV solar installations still suffer. Consequently, they have been promoted their integration into power system reliability and stability issues, such as voltage and power factor regulation. Moreover, it is currently a topic of interest to meet the use of certain areas to supply the necessary power demand and fulfil specific requirements under future high renewable energy source scenarios. This paper analyzes the integration of PV installations into different sectors, both at the level of large industrial customers and at the tertiary level in the East Region of Dominican Republic, implemented a real-scale model. The integration of these sustainable systems into the industrial sector would reduce the energy demand consumption, allowing us to regulate the power factor at distribution level in weak grids. Moreover, an aggregated and coordinated power inverter response is currently considered as a relevant solution for voltage control and power factor improvement; mainly at such distribution levels where it is not usually to find on-load tap changer transformers, and it becomes more difficult to maintain a voltage within certain limits.