Novel nighttime application of PV solar farms as STATCOM (PV-STATCOM)

Photovoltaic solar farms generate power only during daytime and remain completely idle during the nights. This paper presents a novel technology of utilizing Photovoltaic (PV) Solar Farms in the nighttime. New controls are developed for the solar farm inverters to operate as STATCOM - a Flexible AC Transmission System (FACTS) Controller, using the entire inverter capacity in the night for accomplishing various power system objectives, such as voltage regulation, improvement of power transfer capacity, load compensation, etc. During the daytime, the same objectives can be achieved to a substantial degree with the inverter capacity remaining after real power generation. This technology is termed PV-STATCOM. Two novel applications of solar farms operating as PV-STATCOM in realistic transmission and distribution systems are presented in this paper. These are : i) Improving power transfer capacity of transmission lines.; and ii) Increasing the connectivity of neighbouring wind farms.