Impact of Solar PV Systems on the Reliability of Power Distribution Systems

The integration of solar PV into the power distribution systems has been significantly increasing. Hence, distributed solar PV will become a ubiquitous component of modern power distribution systems. This paper investigates the impact of solar PV systems on the adequacy of power distribution systems. Firstly, the system Energy Not Supplied (ENS) is calculated for the RBTS bus 2 system when there is a line outage. The AC optimal power flow analysis is used to evaluate the distribution system states. Different levels of solar PV integration and various solar PV placements are considered to analyse the impact of solar integration on the reliability of power distribution networks. Then, Monte Carlo simulation is used to obtain the ENS of the system by simulating the distribution system operation. The forced outage rates of the system components are considered in the study to model the stochastic operation of the system. The results show that solar PV can significantly reduce the ENS of the system when there is an outage in the system. When 0.75, 1.5, 2.25 MW and 4.5 MW solar capacities are integrated, the daytime ENS is reduced by 5.9 %, 11.6 %, 17.1 % and 32.6 % respectively.