Improving voltage regulation and unbalance in distribution networks using peer-to-peer data sharing between single-phase PV inverters

This paper proposes a novel reactive power-based control strategy for single-phase PV inverters (PVIs) to simultaneously improve voltage unbalance (VU) and voltage regulation (VR) in low-voltage distribution networks. The proposed strategy relies on communication links between neighboring PVIs to exchange limited data. To this end, it is based on two algorithms: (i) to find communication paths between a PVI and the closest neighboring ones connected to other phases for VU compensation and (ii) to find the maximum and the minimum voltage of the grid for VR improvement. The performance of the proposed control strategy is evaluated by various simulation studies using the IEEE European low-voltage test feeder and considering different operational conditions. In addition, the performance of the proposed strategy is evaluated under the impact of moving clouds and also a failure in the communication links. The studies exhibit that using the proposed control strategy, the voltage magnitude of all the nodes will remain within the allowed limits and at the same time, the phase voltage unbalance factor will also be improved.