Voltage rise mitigation and low voltage ride through capabilities for grid-connected low voltage microgrids

Abstract

The total real power injected by distributed renewable energy sources (RES) in the low voltage (LV) grids can cause voltage rise effects during light load scenarios. Integrating RES in microgrid architectures can result in improved power quality of the electrical grid, by avoiding the voltage rise effect from occurring and also by providing ancillary services to the grid. In this paper, a cascaded hierarchical architecture was proposed with the aim to regulate the voltage magnitude and reactive power at the point of common coupling (PCC) of the microgrid. This enables the microgrid to maximize the real power injected in the grid while avoiding the voltage rise effect. In addition, the hierarchical architecture can also support the LV grid during faults due to the added low voltage ride through capability of the microgrid.