Power Factor Control of Photovoltaic Generation Output for Improving Transient Stability

Abstract

SUMMARY Because of significant change in environmental policies and electric power deregulation in the last decades, a lot of photovoltaic (PV) generations have so far been installed to the power system in Japan. When a huge amount of PVs generation is installed into the power system, we are very much concerned that the disconnection of the PVs due to a system fault has a big impact on the power system stability and transient voltage stability. So it is important to equip the PV with Fault Ride Through (FRT) function in order to maintain power supply–demand balance. In addition, Dynamic Voltage Support (DVS) function of the PV is effective to recover the voltage after the system fault. However, it is unclear how the PVs which are equipped with the FRT and DVS functions affect transient stability and voltage stability. In this paper, how the power factor of the PV power output affects the power system after a system fault is analyzed using P–δ curve. Then, a new PV power factor control method for improving the transient stability is proposed and its effectiveness is shown by digital simulations on a simple power system model.