MITIGATION SOLUTIONS TO HIGH PENETRATION OF PHOTOVOLTAICS AND ELECTRIC VEHICLES INTEGRATION IN MALTA

Photovoltaics (PVs) installations have gained considerable momentum through the economy of scales. Similarly, electric mobility is taking momentum in the transport electrification due to its efficiency and now a vast range of selection of vehicles already in Battery Electric Vehicles versions. With the ever-increasing number of both PVs and EVs, it is essential to establish some mitigation solutions, which require minimal intervention, for high penetration of Photovoltaics (PVs) and Electric Vehicles (EVs) on the local low voltage (LV) network. These mitigation solutions are through the control and monitoring of supply voltage variation and utilization factor on the LV feeder. The mitigation solutions under analyses are reactive power injection and on-load tap change (OLTC) transformers performed under a stochastic study using Monte Carlo simulation for five typical Maltese LV feeders modelled with OpenDSS and using a large pool of real data for load and PV profiles as well as EVs profiles. The analysis highlights that these minimal intervention mitigation solutions mitigate voltage rise issues and thereby possibly allow a higher rate of PVs penetration on LV feeders. However, as LV feeders may reach the capacity limit with EVs integration, the utilization factor is to be closely monitored.