Monte Carlo-Based Comprehensive Assessment of PV Hosting Capacity and Energy Storage Impact in Realistic Finnish Low-Voltage Networks

The direction taken towards sustainable power system and renewable energy generation is now irreversible. The power grid needs to host more renewable energy sources, such as solar power, and tackle power quality problems that come along with it. In this paper, firstly, the Hosting Capacities (HCs), of Photo-Voltaic (PV), were found for various regions and their limiting constraints were defined. Afterwards, comparison was made with the HC values obtained for different voltage value standards defined by various countries. Next, single-phase PV connection percentages in the network were defined that makes the voltage unbalance the limiting factor for HC. Lastly, the HC of the solar generation coupled with a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) was assessed for the Finnish Low-Voltage (LV) grids. Different BESS-based scenarios were employed and their impact on voltage unbalance and HCs were observed. Finally, also the load voltage unbalance was incorporated to make the approach realistic and its impact on HC was analyzed. Results reveal that, depending on the connection strategy, the BESS can increase as well as decrease the HC based on voltage unbalance criteria. However, the load voltage unbalance has little effect on the solar HC values.