Impact of Integrating a Photovoltaic Power Plant in a Distribution Feeder

Along with the increasing electricity consumption in the world, much of the global economies try to diversify its energy sources counting on renewables. Distributed generation (DG) has grown considerably in recent years. In this context, photovoltaic energy has been widespread. The large penetration of DG, however, raises some undesired technical impacts to the grid, as a voltage variation concerns, short-circuit levels, changes on protection philosophy and stability concerns. This present research presents a case study on the impacts of the insertion of a 1.42MW solar photovoltaic power plant in a urban feeder. It is considered a variation of loads, typical of residential areas, and the measured power plant output curve were used to perform the simulations. The voltage profile of different system buses are analyzed, characterizing the PV plant power contribution to the system. Finally, it is analyzed the use of capacitors for voltage profile stabilization and power factor correction.