Darbali Zamora, Rachid

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    Photovoltaic inverter voltage regulation performance evaluation using a power hardware-in-the-loop setup on distribution system feeders
    (2019-12-10) Darbali Zamora, Rachid; Ortiz Rivera, Eduardo I.; College of Engineering; Aponte Bezares, Erick E.; Serrano Rivera, Guillermo J.; Cedeño Maldonado, Jose R.; Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Suárez, O. Marcelo
    Real-Time (RT) simulation introduces fast computational capabilities with high-fidelity mathematical models to study large or complex operational systems in the aerospace, automotive, energy, or other domains. The advantage of conducting power simulations in RT is that the dynamic power behavior of physical devices can be represented in large power simulations that would normally not be able to be studied. When physical devices are interconnected with power system simulations through power amplifiers and data acquisition systems, it is called Power Hardware-in-the-Loop (PHIL). A situation where PHIL has proven to be very useful is in voltage regulation studies in distribution systems utilizing a variety of distributed energy sources, such as photovoltaic (PV) inverters. This case is difficult to analyze solely using power hardware experiments or power simulations due to the complex interactions between PV inverter technologies with advanced grid-support functions and power systems. Distribution circuits with high penetrations of renewable energy resources may experience wide voltage deviations because of changing active power flows from distributed energy sources. This project provides a performance comparison between three different voltage regulation control strategies (VVC, ESC and PSO) implemented on a RT PHIL platform. A PV inverter was used as the hardware component of the PHIL setup. The selected control strategies were tested on two reduced distribution models based on real existing systems provided by utility companies from New Mexico and Massachusetts. From these results VVC provided voltage regulation without communications. In low communication environments, ESC could be used to track optimal reactive power setpoints, but it was relatively slow and caused voltage perturbation. PSO was a viable control strategy for voltage regulation if enough telemetry is made available.