Impacts of Storage and Solar Photovoltaic on the Distribution Network

Energy storage is the key building block for effective utilization of Renewable energy (RE). Among different distributed generators (DG), solar Photovoltaic (PV) is one of the most popular method in RE extraction. However PV cannot support the load at steady rate for whole day and storage helps in timely load demand and adds flexibility in load management. Moreover storage indirectly helps in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emission by increasing the use of RE. However storage connects to the grid through inverter and switching of inverter depends on the load demand and PV generation. Frequent switching due to fluctuating solar radiation introduces voltage fluctuation, voltage deviation and harmonics in the network. Moreover the concentration of storage and PV in the network may introduce unbalance situation. This paper identifies the impacts of high penetration of storage and solar PV by evaluating different case scenarios on a small distribution network in Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia. It was found that storage introduces bidirectional power flow in the network and has impacts such as voltage regulation, phase unbalance and harmonics.