Assess the impact of photovoltaic generation systems on low-voltage network: software analysis tool development

The integration of photovoltaic generation systems into power networks can cause both benefits and drawbacks. However, utilities have to control and operate their systems properly, in order to assure the availability and quality power supply to the users. Therefore, utilities should consider technical constraints and existing regulation in order to assess the impact of photovoltaic systems and limit their integration. On the other hand, regulation includes few operation constraints and they are not implemented in current software analysis tools. In the present paper a tool for assessing the impact of PV integration on low-voltage networks is described. The voltage fluctuation, the inversion of the power flow and the increase of short-circuit capacity are the problems considered in the proposed tool. Further work will focus on harmonics distortion.