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Optimal Planning of PV Inverter in the Presence of Capacitor Bank in Medium-

Voltage Distribution Networks

Conference Paper · May 2018

DOI: 10.1109/ICHQP.2018.8378862

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 Optimal Planning of PV Inverter in the Presence of
Capacitor Bank in Medium-Voltage Distribution
Networks
Abdelfatah Ali1,2 David Raisz2 Karar Mahmoud3
1Department 2Department of Electric Power Engineering 3Department
of Electrical Engineering of Electrical Engineering
Faculty of Engineering Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics Faculty of Engineering
South Valley University Budapest University of Technology and Economics Aswan University
83523 Qena, Egypt 1111 Budapest, Hungary 81542 Aswan, Egypt
E-mail: abdelfatah.mohamed@vet.bme.hu E-mail: raisz.david@vet.bme.hu E-mail: karar.alnagar@aswu.edu.eg

Abstract—As the penetration level of the photovoltaic (PV)
system increases over the coming decades, reverse power flows
on the distribution feeder will happen and the associated voltage
rise might lead to violations of voltage limits. The severity of the
voltage regulation problem depends on the relative size and
location of PV system, loads, and the distribution feeder
topology. This paper proposes an approach to solve the voltage
rise problem associated with PV system and to improve the total
voltage deviation by optimally increasing the capacity of the PV
inverter over the capacity of the PV modules in the presence of
capacitor banks. An optimization model is constructed to
calculate the optimal inverter capacity with minimizing the cost
of PV inverter as well as the total voltage deviation on the
distribution network. The overall system constraints are
considered in the optimization model. The proposed approach is
tested using the IEEE 119-node distribution network. The
effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated by
calculating the optimal capacity of the PV inverter for
mitigating the voltage rise problem and reducing the total
voltage deviation.
Index Terms-- Distribution networks, photovoltaic (PV), optimal
inverter capacity, voltage rise, capacitor bank, reactive power
capability.
I. INTRODUCTION
Supplying electrical power to consumers was typically
based on centralized generation stations connected at the
transmission system level. Recently, small-size distributed
generations have been interconnected at the distribution
network level to supply electricity locally. This modification
in the infrastructure of the power system has many benefits,
including: reducing losses, increasing supply reliability, and
improving voltage profile in distribution networks [1]–[6].
Photovoltaic (PV) is one of the most common types of DG,
and its cost is being dramatically decreased. PV units are
distributed in low-voltage (LV) and medium-voltage (MV)
distribution networks beside load centers. One of the major
concerns about PV is voltage regulation problems, i.e.,
voltage rise/drop. Such voltage deviations from the nominal
values have a negative impact on the domestic/industrial
loads and affect their functionality [6]–[12]. The traditional
voltage control devices, e.g., capacitors, often face many
operational problems when employed to solve the voltage
regulation problems with PV. The reason for this behavior is
that the output power of PV is highly fluctuated and so the
shunt capacitors are required to be switched frequently with
high rate.
The inverters of PV systems are often recommended to
work at unity power factor, in other words, to supply only
active power to the distribution system. However, several
recent research studies have investigated the case when the
PV inverter is allowed to inject/absorb reactive power [13]–
[18]. It is demonstrated that the latter control scheme of the
inverter can greatly solve the voltage regulation locally at the
point of common connection (PCC). As a result, the stress on
the conventional devices of voltage control will be
significantly reduced. However, the spare capacity of the PV
inverter during high generation occasions (i.e., sunny
conditions) may not be sufficient to supply reactive power.
To release the capacity of PV inverter during such event, a
common practice is to increase the capacity of the interfaced
inverter over the capacity of the modules of PV systems. As a
result, the cost of the PV system will be increased. Therefore,
an optimal capacity of the PV inverter has to be determined
during the planning stage with considering the cost as well as
the benefits. In addition, the capacity of capacitors must be
considered in the optimization problem.
In this paper, the capacity of PV inverter is optimally
planned in the presence of capacitor banks in MV distribution
networks. To do so, an optimization model is constructed in
which the total voltage deviation and the cost of the capacity

978-1-5386-0517-2/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE

of PV inverter are considered as the objective function to be new capacity of PV inverter. The proposed optimization
minimized. The equality/inequality constraints of the model is mathematically formulated as follows:
distribution network and the PV units are considered. To
solve the optimization model, the AMPL solver is employed. min f = f1 + αf 2 (1)
The proposed planning method of the PV inverter is tested on
the 119-bus distribution network. The results demonstrate the NB
(Vi − VNi )2
effectiveness of the proposed method to properly plan the f1 = VD = 
i =1
VNi
(2)
capacity of the PV inverter for the purpose of preventing the
voltage regulation problems with PV system. 2
f 2 = a + bSinv + cSinv (3)
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section II
describes the voltage regulation problem with PV system. 2
Sinv = Pinv 2
+ Qinv (4)
The optimization model for calculating the optimal capacity
of PV inverter is formulated in Section III. Sections IV and V where α, NB, Vi, and VNi are a scaling factor, number of
present the simulation results and conclusions, respectively. nodes, voltage at node i, and nominal voltage at node i
(VNi=1), respectively. Sin, Pinv, and Qinv are the PV inverter
II. PROBLEM DESCRIPTION capacity, active power of PV inverter, and reactive power of
PV inverter, respectively.
High PV penetration in distribution networks can cause
several problems, such as reverse power flow, interaction B. Constraints
with capacitor banks and voltage regulators, and excessive
losses. In many cases, it is observed that specific parts of the 1) Equality Constraints
distribution networks undergo reverse power flow due to the
NB
high penetration of PV or high PV power generation,
especially during time periods with low load demand. This
Pgi − PDi − Vi V [G
j =1
j ij ]
cos(δ ij ) + Bij sin(δ ij ) = 0 ∀i (5)
results in voltage rises and increases in the power losses.
Thus, appropriate consideration should be taken into account NB
about these problems during the planning of active
distribution systems.
Qgi − QDi − Vi V [G
j =1
j ij sin(δ ij ) − Bij ]
cos(δ ij ) = 0 ∀i (6)

The common method for regulating voltage in

transmission networks is reactive power control, while the
reactive power has a relatively lower impact on voltage
regulation in the distribution networks due to the high R/X
ratio. Nevertheless, appropriate reactive power control can
regulate the voltage in the distribution networks [19], [20].
For this purpose, the capacitor banks and spare capacity of
PV inverters can be used for reactive power
injection/absorption to regulate the voltages in the
distribution networks. During high irradiance and PV
generation levels, the reactive power capacity of PV inverter
reduces. Once the capacity limit is reached, voltage rise
prevention by the reactive power of PV inverter will not be
possible. In this situation, the capacity of PV inverter could
be increased to allow further reactive power capability in
which the new capacity of the PV inverter should be
optimally calculated.
III. PROBLEM FORMULATION
A. Objective function
At high PV generation, the PV inverter is fully loaded.
Therefore, there is no spare capacity for reactive power
injection/absorption. For further reactive power capability,
the capacity of PV inverter could be increased. The new
capacity of PV inverter should be optimally calculated with
considering the impact of the capacitor bank in the network.
Two objective functions are considered in this work as
follows: 1) total voltage deviation (VD), and 2) cost of the
V1 = 1 , δ1 = 0 (7)
where Pgi, Qgi are the active and reactive power generated of
at node i, respectively; PDi and QDi are the active and reactive
power demand at node i, respectively; Gij and Bij are the
conductance and susceptance of the line i-j, respectively.
2) Inequality Constraints
min max
Qinv ≤ Qinv ≤ Qinv (8)
V min ≤ VPCC ≤ V max (9)
S rated ≤ Sinv ≤ 2 S rated (10)
where Qinv min max
, Qinv , VPCC, Vmin, Vmax, and Sreated are the
minimum reactive power limit of PV inverter, maximum
reactive power limit of PV inverter, voltage at the point of
common coupling (PCC), minimum voltage limit at PCC,
maximum voltage limit at PCC, and rated capacity of PV
inverter, respectively. The optimization model described in
this section is solved by using AMPL solver.
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
A 119-node radial distribution network (Figure 1) has been
used to validate the proposed approach. It is a balanced three-
phase radial network consisting of 119 nodes with 11 kV as
operating voltage level at 100 MVA base. The total active
and reactive loads are 22.710 MW and 17.041 Mvar,
 13 14 15 16 17 18
Case 1 Case 2 Case 3
Figure 1. Single line diagram of 119-node distribution network (Node
11 12
1.3
numbers
19 20 21are22reordered).
23 24 25 26 27 28
1.25

3 5 6 7 8 9 10 1.2

Voltage at PCC (pu)

1.15
4 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47
1.1
Vmax
1.05
29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55
1

37 38 0.95

0.9

102
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118
2
6
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18
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34
38
42
46
50
54
58
62
66
70
74
78
82
86
90
94
98
56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

PV location
97 98 99 100
Figure 2. Voltage profile at PCC of the three cases at different
locations of PV.
1 2 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

Case 1 Case 2 Case 3

64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78
S/S 0.55
0.5
Capacitor bank
0.45

Voltage deviation (pu)

79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86
0.4
0.35
87 88 89
0.3

101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 113 114 0.25
0.2
115 116 117 118 119 112 0.15
0.1
2
6

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118
10
14
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22
26
30
34
38
42
46
50
54
58
62
66
70
74
78
82
86
90
94
98
Figure 1. Single line diagram of 119-node distribution network (Node PV location
numbers are reordered).
Figure 3. Total voltage deviation of the three cases at different
respectively. The initial active and reactive power losses at locations of PV.
nominal loading are 1.298 MW and 0.979 Mvar, respectively.
It is observed that the minimum node voltage magnitude of • Case 3: the PV inverter has reactive power
0.8688 p.u occurs at node number 78 at nominal load capability and the impact of the capacitor bank is
condition. The complete data of the network are obtained considered.
from [21]. The node numbers of the network are renumbered Case 1 represents the base case in which PV inverter works at
and the tie switches (normally open) are removed from the unity power factor, while Case 2 considers the reactive power
network. capability of PV inverter without considering the capacitor
bank. Because PV inverter is fully loaded, its capacity could
A capacitor bank with a capacity of 5 Mvar is assumed to
be optimally increased to allow more reactive power
be connected to node 69. The simulation results are
capability. Both reactive power capability of PV inverter and
performed with changing the location of PV system. The
capacitor bank are considered in Case 3.
penetration level of PV system is assumed to be 50% with
respect to the total load. The analysis is performed at mid-day The voltage profiles at PCC for different cases are shown
in which the generated power of PV system is equal to the in Figure 2 (PV system is connected to one node in the whole
rated capacity of PV inverter (PPV=Srated). Note that the lower network). As shown in Figure 2, the voltage at PCC violates
and upper limits of PCC voltage are 0.95 p.u. and 1.05 p.u., the upper limit at many locations of the PV system in the base
respectively [22]. These thresholds can be changed according case. However, the voltage at PCC is within limits at some
to the region (e.g., in Europe, according to EN 50160, the locations (e.g., nodes 1-14, 29-40, 64-68, and 101-105). The
voltage thresholds are 0.9 and 1.1 p.u). To demonstrate the voltage rise at PCC is completely mitigated after considering
effectiveness of the proposed approach, the following cases the reactive power capability of PV inverter or both reactive
are studied in this paper. power capability and capacitor bank (Case 2, Case 3).
• Case 1: this base case is simulated based on the The total voltage deviation at different locations for the
original state of distribution system without three study cases is shown in Figure 3. Figure 3 shows that
considering neither capacitor bank nor reactive the total voltage deviation in Case 2 is reduced at many
power capability of PV inverter. locations of the PV system, while in Case 3 it is significantly
• Case 2: the PV inverter has reactive power reduced at all locations of the PV system. It demonstrates that
capability without considering the capacitor bank. using both optimal reactive power of PV inverter and
 Figure 5 shows the optimal capacity of PV inverter with
Case 1 Case 2 Case 3
respect to the rated capacity. This figure illustrates that if the
0.6
PV system is connected to certain locations, e.g., nodes 2-13,
0.5 29, 56, 67, the increase in PV inverter capacity will not be
required where PV inverter capacity is 100%. On the other
Objective function

0.4
hand, when PV system is connected to other nodes, the
0.3 capacity of PV inverter is increased in Cases 2 and 3 to
reduce the total voltage deviations. Note that at location 65,
0.2
the capacity of PV inverter is reduced from 199.3% to
0.1 132.1% when the capacitor bank is considered (Case 3). The
capacity of PV inverter with considering the capacitor bank
0
may be larger than that without considering the capacitor

102
106
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114
118
2
6
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98
PV location bank in some locations, but the improvement of total voltage
deviation and reducing of the objective function are better
Figure 4. The values of the objective function of the three cases at
different locations of when the capacitor bank is considered as shown in Figures 2
PV and 3.
Case 1 Case 2 Case 3
The optimal injected/absorbed reactive power of PV
220
inverter reactive is described in Figure 6 for all cases. As
200 shown in the figure, the negative values imply that PV
inverter injects reactive power into the distribution network to
Inverter capacity (%)

180 improve the voltage deviation, while the positive values

160
imply that PV inverter absorbs reactive power from the
distribution network to alleviate the voltage rise at PCC and
140 to improve the total voltage deviation.
120 This analysis demonstrates that the optimal capacity of PV
inverter and the improvement in the voltage deviation are
100
significantly varies depending on the PV location and the
102
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118
2
6
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34
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PV location capacitor bank consideration. Therefore, it is important to

Figure 5. Optimal capacity of PV inverter of the three cases at different
compute the capacity of the PV inverter optimally using the
locations of PV. proposed formulation for reducing the voltage deviation with
minimum cost. We can note that the optimal location of PV
Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 system and the optimal capacity of PV inverter without
15 considering capacitor bank are node 68 and 101.5%,
Reactive power absorbtion
10 respectively; while they are node 35 and 100%, respectively,
5 when the capacitor bank is considered. The percentage of
Reactive power (Mvar)

0 total voltage deviation reduction (VDR) with and without

-5
considering capacitor bank (Case 2 and Case 3) can be
described as follows:
-10
Reactive power injection
-15
VDbase − VDn
-20 VDR(%) = × 100 (11)
VDn
-25
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2
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PV location
Figure 6. Optimal reactive power of PV inverter of the three cases at
different locations of PV.
capacitor bank can do a better job in minimizing the total
voltage deviation than only using the reactive power of PV
inverter alone.
Figure 4 illustrates the objective function values at
different locations for all the three study cases. The figure
shows that the objective function in case 3 has lower values
than Cases 1 and 2, where the objective function values in
Case 2 is lower than that in Case 1. It is demonstrated that
considering the capacitor bank has a significant role in
reducing the objective function.
where VDbase and VDn are the total voltage deviation at the
base case and total voltage deviation at Case 2/Case 3,
respectively. Therefore, VDR for Cases 2 and 3 at optimal
locations are 2.7% and 59.5%, respectively. This implies that
the capacitor bank has a significant impact in reducing the
total voltage deviation.
V. CONCLUSIONS
This paper has presented an approach for the optimal
planning of the inverter of PV systems to solve the voltage
regulation problems with the intermittent PV generation. The
traditional voltage control device (capacitor bank) is
considered in the proposed optimization model. This
optimization model has been built to compute the optimal
inverter capacity with reducing the cost of PV inverter as well
as the total voltage deviation of the distribution network. The
proposed approach has been tested on the IEEE 119-node
distribution network. The calculated results demonstrate the
efficiency of the proposed approach for calculating an
optimal capacity of the PV inverter which completely solve
the voltage regulation problems caused by PV.
It has to be noted, that this paper exclusively focuses on a
technical solution, regardless of the underlying regulatory and
business model. Further work should include a broader
context, in which the financial or regulatory motivation of the
players should be highlighted or elaborated. (e.g. why should
a PV-owner overrate its PV inverter, how can a DSO
motivate the grid users to take part in the voltage regulation
problem.)
VI. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Project no. FIEK_16-1-2016-0007 has been implemented
with the support provided from the National Research,
Development and Innovation Fund of Hungary, financed
under the FIEK_16 funding scheme.
The Authors wish to thank Péter Sőrés and Bálint Hartmann
for their valuable comments.
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