Feature distance based online cluster modeling of LVRT controlled PV power plants

•Use the feature distance based cluster technique to build dynamic models for PV plants.•Consider the impact of PV inverter low voltage ride through control behaviors.•Consider the impact of partial shading conditions.•The mothed is an online approach and is suitable for large-scale PV power plants.

This paper presents a feature distance based online cluster modeling method for low voltage ride-through (LVRT) controlled photovoltaic (PV) power plant under partial shading. The proposed modeling approach uses the PV inverter feature distance weighted by parameter sensitivity as the clustering index and integrates an equivalent LVRT modelling strategy to describe the complete dynamic performance of the modelled PV power plant. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified through the simulation results which also show that the method can accurately track the dynamic responses of PV power plant as the power distribution among different PV inverters changes.