Fair Power Curtailment of Distributed Renewable Energy Sources to Mitigate Overvoltages in Low-Voltage Networks

Penetration of distributed renewable energy sources in low-voltage (LV) networks is increasing steadily. This trend helps the vision of sustainability, but it is hindered by various economic and technical constraints. Some of the existing solutions put some customers in a disadvantageous position, which is often overlooked while developing technical solutions. In this paper, the most common solutions to cope with overvoltage are analyzed, including inverters with ON/OFF switching and droop-based control features. These two techniques place customers connected to the end of a radial feeder in a disadvantageous position, by curtailing their power generation more than their counterparts who are connected closer to the MV/LV transformer; a situation generally known as unfair power curtailment. In this paper, an efficient solution for voltage rise is proposed, which mitigates voltage rise using conventional droop control techniques, but also provides fair power curtailment among all customers by exploiting the sensitivity matrix of the examined radial feeder. The proposed control strategy is implemented in a flexible simulation platform, based on MATLAB and OpenDSS. Results on different LV networks are compared with the corresponding obtained by conventional droop control methods, highlighting the superior performance of the proposed control strategy.