Impact of Solar Farm Location on Power Losses and Voltage Fluctuations in Distribution Networks Using PSCAD

Document Type : Original research paper

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School of Engineering , University of the West of England, Frenchay Campus, Bristol, United Kingdom

Abstract

This paper reports on the impact of PV farm location in Low-Voltage Distribution Networks (LVDNs) in terms of power loss and voltage profile.
Simulation results from a five node or bus radial network within the Power Systems Computer Aided Design (PSCAD) software, successfully demonstrate the effect of the solar farm interface at different network buses on the degree of power loss and voltage variation under three load power sizes, namely 5%, 50% and 100% of the rated power. The results also suggest that the generators’ phase angle, point of coupling location, inverters and associated converters switching algorithms have great influence on the aforementioned issues. Furthermore, the injected power by the PV farm at the load side will decrease the power demand from the substation. This in turn leads to the loss reduction and voltage profile improvement within the network. However, if the PV farm power generation is more than the load demand, some power may flow towards the substation. Consequently, a voltage rise can be expected along the distribution network. The rise of the voltage limits the amount of penetration level that can be installed in the distribution networks.

Keywords

Journal of Engineering Advances and Technologies for Sustainable Applications
Volume 1, Issue 1 - Serial Number 1
Special Issue, Selected papers from The International Conference on Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ICETS 2025)
January 2025
Pages 25-30

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