Stochastic analysis of a local distribution company voltage profile under uncertain energy supply from a photovoltaic system

Recently in Ontario, Canada new installations of renewable distributed generation are being encouraged. Incentives are provided to producers directly by the government when energy is fed to the grid. This however has brought the attention of operators of local distribution companies to the issue of assuring the quality of supply to downstream customers when the grid receives this new and highly varying energy. As a result of these variations, the voltage may deviate from the standard levels. This paper investigates the impacts of installing a PV system, with considerable capacity compared to the network demand, on the voltage profile of an existing distribution network. Monte Carlo technique is applied focusing on the voltage profile by solving the steady state load flow model every 15-min time interval. A distribution system supplying a significant part of the region is considered as a case study.