Effect of reactive power management of PV inverters on need for energy storage

Grid connected Photovoltaic (PV) systems are among the increasingly growing electric power generation units worldwide. The majority of new installations are expected to be residential PVs that are connected into distribution systems. However, the PV hosting capacity of low voltage (LV) grids is limited due to the voltage rise at the point of connection associated with the PV feed-in current. Reactive power management using PV inverters and using the electrical energy storage systems (EESS) are amongst the main solutions for increasing the PV hosting capacity in LV grids. In this paper, a method is developed in order to examine the effect of reactive power absorption by PV inverters on EESS capacity required for overvoltage prevention in LV grids. Simulations show that reactive power absorption can effectively decrease the EESS capacity.