Control of Photovoltaic Systems for Enhanced Short-Term Voltage Stability and Recovery

This paper investigates the impact of: 1) the Low Voltage Ride-Through (LVRT) and Dynamic Voltage Support (DVS) capability; 2) the active current recovery rate; 3) the local voltage control; and 4) the plant-level voltage control of large-scale PhotoVoltaic (PV) systems on Short-Term (ST) voltage stability and Fault-Induced Delayed Voltage Recovery (FIDVR). Moreover, the influence on transient and frequency stability is studied briefly. To evaluate FIDVR, a novel metric, the so-called Voltage Recovery Index (VRI), is defined. The studies are performed with the WECC generic PV system model on an IEEE voltage stability test system, namely the Nordic test system. The results show that without LVRT capability the system is ST voltage and transient unstable. Only the LVRT and DVS capability help to avoid ST voltage and transient instability. Considering voltage and frequency dynamics, an active current recovery rate of 100%/s shows the best performance. To further enhance voltage dynamics, plant-level voltage control together with local coordinated reactive power/voltage control should be applied. Moreover, the VRI provides useful information about the FIDVR and helps to compare different ST voltage controls.

I. Introduction

The electrical power system has undergone fundamental changes due to the increasing penetration of inverter based generation, i.e., wind and PhotoVoltaic (PV) generation. The dynamic characteristics of these technologies are different from conventional synchronous generators, which may impact the performance of the power system.