A Technique for the Optimal Control and Operation of Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Production Units

The strong and intense increase of the number of Photovoltaic production plants has slowly changed the asset and the operation conditions of the electric system. The aim of the present work is to introduce an innovative optimized control strategy to exploit the reactive power resource generated by photovoltaic plants in order to improve the quality and efficiency of the low/medium voltage distribution network. Here, a methodology to define the optimal reactive power reference for every photovoltaic unit of the network is presented in order to pursue a well-defined goal, such as the minimization of the Joule losses or the voltage support. Such reference signals are then provided to the photovoltaic control systems that will guarantee the decoupling between the reactive power channel and the active power one, thanks to the use of the FeedBack Linearization (FBL) control technique. The problem is here formulated in a general way, therefore it can be extended to any possible grid configuration and test case scenario.