Active voltage regulation for mitigation of voltage issues due to increasing PV penetration and EV loads

Abstract

The number of PV installations have increased substantially over the years both at large scale and residential scale. This has resulted in the Maltese power system experiencing periods of reverse power flow. Since the network was designed for centralised power distribution this has brought about new challenges for the distribution operator. During periods of large loads, the electrical lines will still experience voltage drops, however when large PV generation is present there shall be reverse power flow and the electrical lines will experience an increase in voltage. The paper shall review various methods used for the mitigation of such power quality issues. Practical results for a thyristor-controlled transformer-based voltage regulator shall be presented. This type of regulator has advantages over the other methods since it can be applied to any point in the existing LV network, carries out individual phase correction, is easy to install and has very low loss.