Impact of photovoltaic integration on voltage variation of Brazilian secondary network distribution system

This paper aims to investigate the voltage variation on a typical network distribution in Brazil due to photovoltaic penetration. The perspectives for an increase of decentralized grid connected photovoltaic system in the next years are positive, due to the new regulatory framework in the country. A computational simulation was performed in MATLAB/SIMULINK using typical features of a Brazilian urban network. Simulations were performed with various load demand and PV penetration levels. We considered two different scenarios of a daily energy consumption. The first one considers a typical Brazilian load curve with a sharp peak around 7pm. The second scenario presents a flatter load curve that can be achieved assuming a smart grid concept. The results showed that for a typical Brazilian distribution grid, the photovoltaic system penetration could reach a percentage value of 30% without exceed the upper voltage limit. However, if a smarter and more efficient energy consumption is considered, the photovoltaic system penetration is increased to 40%.