Evaluation of Photovoltaic Systems for Reactive Power Compensation in Low Voltage Power Systems

The four-quadrant operation ability of photovoltaic (PV) inverters makes them promising candidates for reactive power compensation in low voltage systems. In this paper, utilization of PV inverters instead of conventional reactive power compensation units is evaluated. The use of PV inverters for reactive power compensation as well as active power supplying is investigated considering a real life system. The considered system suffers from low capacitive power factor due to the connected online UPS system. The paper firstly analyzes utilization of low voltage PV systems for reactive power compensation purpose technically, and then presents a detailed economic study in terms of short and long-term costs. The costs are evaluated considering reactive demand charge to the customer.