Impact Analysis of Optimal Photovoltaic Power Plant Reactive Power Control upon Microgrids Operation

In this paper, the impact of different photovoltaic power plants (PVPPs) reactive power control strategies upon a microgrid operation are compared. The first strategies consist in operating the PVPPs at unitary or fixed power factor values, while a local load compensation strategy and an optimal reactive power control strategy, based on the Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO), are also employed. The microgrid operation is simulated for a one-year period with a one-hour granulation for all considered strategies, and the active power losses, reactive power import and bus voltage levels are compared.