Distribution grid capacity for reactive power support

Abstract: The modern power system is changing at a rate faster than would have been expected20 years ago. More and more conventional power plants will be shut down in favour ofdistribution generation (DG). This is happening now with the trend of introducing renewableenergy sources (RES) to the power system.The grids were designed to transfer power from generating units connected to the highvoltage grids towards the end consumers connected to the low voltage grids. With changedpower mix, power flows in the system will change resulting in possible grid problems. Oneof the main problems is keeping the voltage within operational limits of the system. Whenthe generation exceeds the consumption in a distribution network, the power will flow fromthe low voltage network towards the high voltage network (reverse power flow) which willcause the voltage to rise in the low voltage network. Reactive power support from DG canbe a valuable resource to mitigate the problem. Reactive power is necessary to operatethe power system. The main source of reactive power is synchronous generators. If thissource is shut down, the reactive power must come from another source.This thesis investigates if DG could be used to support reactive power to the highvoltage transmission network to control the voltage. For this purpose, a distributionsystem located close toWorms, Germany will be studied. This distribution system consistsof two MV feeders with high penetration of DG, mostly photovoltaic (PV) but also windturbines (WT). Consumption and generation measurement data was provided by the localdistribution system operator (DSO). A few reactive power control methods are introducedand tested on this system. From the results, it is concluded that it is possible to providereactive power support from distribution networks and a voltage dependent reactive powercontrol can be used to this purpose.