Decentralized Voltage Regulation for PV Generation Plants Using Real-Time Pricing Strategy

Photovoltaic (PV) generation may cause a voltage rise at the interconnection point due to reverse power flows, and it is recognized as a critical issue for keeping power quality. This paper investigates a decentralized management problem of power conditioning systems (PCSs), which are used to interconnect the PV system into the power grid. We consider a real-time pricing strategy of the operator, a management office of a PV generation plant, and each PCS determines own set points of the active and reactive power injections by solving an individual small-size optimization problem that includes the conceptual price provided by the operator. This feedback interaction between the operator and PCSs eventually suppresses the voltage deviation. The effectiveness of the proposed real-time pricing and distributed decision-making methodology is evaluated through the numerical experiments, as well as the real physical experiments.