Optimal placement of grid-connected photovoltaic generators in a power system for voltage stability enhancement

Abstract

The high penetration of photovoltaic (PV) generation can cause many technical issues such as power quality and impact on the power system voltage stability. To improve voltage stability and reducing power loss in a power system with PV generators, appropriate planning of PV generators is considered by optimal placement of PV. Thus, an effective heuristic optimization technique such as the Wind Driven Optimization (WDO) technique is applied for determining optimal location of PV generators in a power system. For determining the optimal location of PV, the objective function considers maximizing the Improved Voltage Stability Index. The proposed method for optimal location of PV generators is implemented on the IEEE 118 and 30 bus transmission systems and the 69-radial distribution system. The optimization results show that integrating PV into the test systems improves voltage stability in the system. Comparing the performance of the WDO with the particle swarm optimization technique, it is shown that the WDO technique gives faster convergence.