Feeder Voltage Profile Design for Energy Conservation and PV Hosting Capacity Enhancement

Distribution system voltage drop can affect conservation voltage reduction efforts and also photovoltaic hosting capacity. This paper presents a voltage profile design algorithm, which employs a time-series analysis to place the necessary number of voltage control devices at appropriate locations for maintaining a feeder's voltage profile over time. With a flatter voltage profile, the feeder operating voltage can be lowered to conserve energy, and the photovoltaic (PV) hosting capacity will also increase. A key feature of the algorithm is the selective evaluation of practical constraints relevant to the design of the type of voltage control device considered. To obtain statistically relevant results for the control benefits, feeders selected for testing the algorithm are based on results from a feeder taxonomy study. Through case studies on detailed, statistically selected feeder models, both energy conversation and photovoltaic generation hosting capacity benefits are demonstrated. The effects of advanced inverter control functions are also considered.