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PMU Optimal Placement using sensitivity analysis for power systems fault
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DOI: 10.1109/EPEC.2015.7379957

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 32, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2017 525

Challenges of PV Integration in Low-Voltage

Secondary Networks
P. Mohammadi, Student Member, IEEE, and S. Mehraeen, Member, IEEE

Abstract—This paper presents challenges and potential impacts problems if not treated properly, both the government and utility
of photovoltaic (PV) integration in the low-voltage downtown sec- customers have a great desire for PV integration.
ondary networks (downtown networks). In the conventional sec- Conventional urban lateral distribution networks are designed
ondary networks, substation feeders are the sole source of electric
power and establish unidirectional power to the downtown net- to accommodate unidirectional power flow from generation
work. The network protectors prevent the flow of power from plants to the customers. This assumption is prone to violation
inside the network to the upstream feeder by disconnecting the by PV units causing reverse power flow in the case of excess
circuit to protect the feeder transformer against upstream faults. power generation. The bidirectional flow of power can poten-
The assumption of unidirectional power flow can be violated by PV tially interfere with the protective equipment. Other network
generation due to the possibility of excess power inside the network.
It is shown in this paper that a large number of network protector operational conditions such as voltage profile, flicker, etc., can
trips can occur and, thus, voltage collapse may follow even in low also be affected by the presence of PV power [1], [2]. Cloud
PV penetration levels. In addition, it is demonstrated that the re- effect, weather unpredictability, sun irradiance hourly changes,
close action of the network protector relays is adversely affected by uncertainties in PV operational conditions, losses due to im-
the PV power. Other adverse effects of such distributed-generation
proper integration, etc., can add additional challenges to the
units, such as voltage profile, line overloads, and flicker, are also
briefly discussed. Finally, a solution is proposed, based on differ- operation of the distribution networks [4], [5].
ential currents, to upgrade the network protector relays in order PV integration is more challenging in downtown underground
to avoid false trips due to excessive PV power. Part of the New networks than radial distribution networks due to the highly
Orleans downtown network is modeled and the study is performed meshed circuit configuration and unidirectional power flow re-
through simulations. quirements. There exists very little research on PV power in-
Index Terms—Distributed generation (DG), downtown network, tegration in low-voltage (LV) secondary networks especially
low-voltage secondary network, microprocessor network protector when it comes to network protection [4]. Since integrated PV
relay (MNPR), photovoltaic (PV). power generation was not considered in network designs, if
costumers install PV generators with capacity higher than their
consumption, the networks safety and reliability can be com-
I. INTRODUCTION
promised resulting in frequent outages, excessive overloading,
LECTRIC power systems have been experiencing fast and
E fundamental changes in recent years due to the introduc-
tion of distributed generation (DG). The smart grid, utilizing
and inability in fault current termination [1]–[6].
One of the impacts of PV power on the secondary network
is the network protection malfunction. Excess PV power can
renewable energy-based distributed generation, attracts great lead to loss of coordination, changes in fault ratings and source
attention due to environmental and reliability concerns [1], [2]. contributions [8]–[11]. In addition, solar irradiance is not fully
Government incentives, technological advances, and many other predictable resulting in intermittent power generation on cloudy
factors have resulted in a dramatic growth in photovoltaic (PV) days. This may affect the network voltage profile [4] and cause
power utilization and integration by both customers and utility voltage flicker. Also, excessive PV power generation can cause
companies [1]–[3]. Approximately 1.3 gigawatts of PV power overvoltage [7]. However, the most critical effect of the in-
were installed in the United States in the first quarter of 2015 tegration of PV power in downtown networks is the network
resulting in a total of 21.3 GW of installed capacity [3]. The protector false trip and reclose issues that can lead to reactive
residential share of this installed capacity is 400 megawatts, power shortage and voltage instability which are the main focus
which is a 76% rise compared to the same period in 2014 [3]. of this research.
While this rapid pace of PV integration can potentially cause In [4] the effects of inverter-based, induction, and syn-
chronous DGs on the secondary network’s voltage profiles are
investigated and the possibility of over and under voltage are
Manuscript received August 7, 2015; revised January 1, 2016; accepted March explored by using probabilistic DG power distribution. It is also
29, 2016. Date of publication April 20, 2016; date of current version January mentioned in [4] that with DG penetration in the network there
20, 2017. Paper no. TPWRD-01069-2015.
The authors are with the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer is a chance of network protector tripping. However, the unde-
Science, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803 USA (e-mail: sirable network protector false tripping is not elaborated on in
[email protected]; [email protected]). [4]. Indeed, incidents such as cascaded network protector trips,
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. transformer overloads, and reclose issues are very likely in the
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2016.2556692 presence of DG due to reverse power flow.
0885-8977 © 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
526 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 32, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2017

By contrast, this research focuses on the issue of reverse

power flow and network protector false tripping and shows that
widespread network protector trips and total secondary network
voltage collapse can occur with low and moderate PV penetra-
tion levels. Much attention is paid to PV power rather than DG
to address reactive power shortage, power variability, intermit-
tence of power, and the emergence of the PV installments in
downtown networks. The cascaded trips of network protectors
can occur at some levels of PV penetration which may lead to
shortage of reactive power from the primary feeders, and thus
voltage instability. It is also shown here that the PV units can
interfere with the reclose operation of the network protectors.
These issues have not been fully investigated in the past litera-
ture. Subsequently, the effects of PV power on voltage profile
and line overload, as well as voltage flicker as a result of cloud Fig. 1. Approximate street boundaries and schematic of the network.
movement, in the secondary network are studied. It is observed
that flicker in the range of “visible” can occur in the presence of TABLE I
PV power. Finally, a solution based on the differential current is THE SECONDARY NETWORK DETAILS
proposed to prevent network protector false trip in the presence
of PV power. Nodes Lines Loads amount (pu) Trans

In this paper, the terms secondary network and downtown net- FN GN SN FN GN SN FN GN SN vaults
work are interchangeably used and are the same. The remainder
of this paper is organized in the following order: Section II 409 648 152 408 717 118 00 20.48 7.18 13.21 4.62 169

presents the secondary network under study and its modeling 1209 1243 P= 33.69 MW Q= 11.79 MVAr 163 in service
details. Microprocessor Network Protector Relay (MNPR) op-
eration and modes are also discussed in this section along with
the proposed solution to upgrade network protectors. In Sec- TABLE II
THE SECONDARY NETWORK LOADS
tion III, different PV arrangements and allocation methods are
provided for simulation purposes. Simulation results regarding
Number of loads per network
trip statistics, cascaded tripping, line overloading, and reclose
issues are also discussed here using MNPR. The impacts of us- Group Power Range GN SN Total
ing the proposed Smart Network Protector Relay (SNPR) are Very Large Load Larger than 1 MVA 1 2 3
discussed in Section IV along with simulation results for cloud Large Load 0.2-1 MVA 31 22 53
Medium Load 50-200 KVA 80 1 81
effects and network voltage profile in the presence of PV power. Small Load 10-50 KVA 57 1 58
Finally, concluding remarks are made in Section V. Very Small Load 0-10 KVA 33 0 33

There is no load located on feeder nodes.

II. LOW-VOLTAGE SECONDARY NETWORK
The secondary network is the portion of the distribution sys-
Table I. Secondary network nodes fall into two groups includ-
tem between the primary feeders and customer premises where
ing grid network (GN) and spot network (SN) that are both
a highly meshed circuit delivers power to the customers from
connected to the feeder network (FN)—also called upstream
multiple points to increase reliability (See Fig. 1) [18], [19].
network—through the network protectors. This network is fed
The feeders are connected to one substation to avoid phase
from seven 13.2 kV feeders all connected to the main sub-
angle difference. The reliability and continuity of power is very
station. Feeders are connected to the grid and spot networks
important in downtown networks due to the nature of the loads
through underground grid vaults (GVs) and spot vaults (SVs)
and/or population located in those areas. This type of network
where transformers and network protector relays are located.
has been used in the majority of the large cities in the United
Fig. 2 depicts Grid Vault 2 connecting Feeders 1 and 6 to the
States since the early 19th century [17]. The traditional low-
grid network nodes 20 and 23. A total number of 169 trans-
voltage downtown networks are designed such that the primary
formers and their corresponding network protectors serve in
substation is the sole source of power. Any reverse power flow
the secondary network and are all located in the vaults. Out of
towards the primary feeders is an indicator of a fault being fed
these transformers 6, were disconnected by the utility company
in the upstream network. Therefore, distributed generation po-
for maintenance and are considered open throughout this study.
tentially conflicts with network operation due to the possibility
Each vault is fed from two or more feeders to increase network
of bidirectional power flow.
reliability. Grid network vaults with 120/28 V levels serve loads
up to 500 kVA (with the exception of two loads) that account
A. Network Under Study
for approximately 56% of the network’s loads. Spot vaults with
The selected secondary network is the Warehouse District 120/208 V or 277/480 V levels serve high-load buildings and
in the city of New Orleans. The network details are shown in heavily loaded nodes up to 1500 kVA. A total of 228 loads are
MOHAMMADI AND MEHRAEEN: CHALLENGES OF PV INTEGRATION IN LOW-VOLTAGE SECONDARY NETWORKS 527

Steady-state studies reveal potential negative impacts of PV

integration in the downtown network, and thus load-flow is
found sufficient for this purpose. It is anticipated that by tak-
ing the dynamic behavior of the network into account through
more detailed simulations, the observed impacts will be slightly
larger. Since the objective of this paper is to present the investi-
gation of potential impacts and not detailed simulations neces-
sary for implementation, steady-state simulation is chosen. The
transients usually aggravate the predicted problems and detailed
time-domain simulations will possibly show additional negative
impacts in the study, but will not affect the proposed solution as
will be explained.
Fig. 2. LV secondary network grid vault connected to two feeders.

C. Microprocessor Network Protector Relay (MNPR)

Network protector relays are the key elements in a secondary
network protection system. The modern MNPR is a digital relay
that combines the functions of a master relay and a network
phasing relay. The older types of these MNPR relays (that are
still in use) are electro mechanical requiring fine mechanical
adjustment to operate. The MNPRs are programmable and have
many built-in controls to avoid their ancestor issues such as
“ratcheting” [18].
Regular MNPR has five trip and three reclose modes of oper-
ation [17]. The commonly used “Sensitive Trip” and “Reclose”
modes are modeled in this study. Since the downtown network
is powered from multiple points, power can flow into the sec-
Fig. 3. Simulated network voltage profile mismatch with field. ondary network from one upstream feeder and exit from it into
another upstream feeder feeding a fault. In normal operation,
where there are no faults in the upstream network, the power
supplied in the selected downtown network as summarized in flows from upstream network to the downtown network through
Table II. all feeders. The MNPRs’ primary task is to protect the net-
work against upstream feeder faults. This is done by sensing
a reverse power flow through the Sensitive Trip mode. Once
B. Network Model
a faulty feeder is disconnected from the main substation, the
The downtown network is modeled as a balanced three-phase fault in the upstream network is fed by the other feeders through
system. Loads on all network nodes are also three-phase loads. the downtown network. Network protectors sense the reverse
Since the effect of excess power and the proposed solution power flow from the downtown network to the upstream feeder
(discussed later) are not affected by the imbalance that may exist and disconnect the circuit. The MNPR takes six cycles to trip
in the network, the balanced three-phase modeling is adequate and an adjustable number of cycles are required to occur for a
for the study. Load flow is used to solve the network for steady- reclose operation. A reclose time of six cycles is considered in
state operation using the line impedance model. Nodes that are this study. The Sensitive Trip is set to 0.15% of the rated trans-
short distances apart are combined and a reduced network of 928 former current [24]. The transformer protection will also trip
nodes is obtained. Power flow direction is used to determine the overloaded transformers when the loading exceeds 100% of the
operation status of the network protector relays. Once reverse transformer rating. It is important to note that the transformer
flow is detected, the pertinent network protector is tripped and rating is usually higher than the transformer nominal load. Line
load-flow is performed subsequently. A similar scenario is used overload is also considered in this paper by adopting 105% of
for the relays’ reclose operations. The total network full load the line nominal current as the overload limit. It should be noted
is 33.69 MW and 11.79 MVAr while the networks minimum that the underground downtown distribution lines have lower
load is considered 16% of its full load based on the historical overload tolerance than their overhead counterparts due to the
field data (recent minimum load is higher than 16%). Fig. 3 insulation material of the cables.
depicts the model’s voltage profile mismatch when compared to The reclose characteristic of the network protector relay is
the data provided by the utility company. The figure shows less shown in Fig. 4. In the figure, reclosing voltage VD , which is
than 1% mismatch in voltage magnitude and 0.1% in phase angle the voltage difference between the two sides of the network
at normal operation. These are the maximum errors among the protector, is observed. That is, V D = V T − V N where V T
1209 nodes’ voltage magnitudes and phase angles as compared is the transformer side voltage and V N is the voltage on the
to that provided by the utility company. network side (see Fig. 2). If the fault exists in the upstream
528 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 32, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2017

Fig. 4. Reclosing characteristic of the MNPR.

circuit, transformer voltage V T lags or is smaller in magnitude

than network voltage V N . The reclosing action takes place only
when the voltage on the transformer side of the open network
protector is slightly higher in magnitude and is in-phase with or
leading the voltage on the network side of the network protector.
The default setting for the reclose voltage is 1.4 V (this usually
ranges 0.1 to 10.0 V).
Fig. 5. (a) Two instances of closed cut-sets (b) Cut-set 2 per-phase structure
of the proposed SNPR.
D. Smart Network Protector Relay (SNPR)
The smart network protector relay is proposed here to pre-
vent the false trip due to reverse power flow caused by excess network from the secondary network. Two possible cut-sets
power inside the network and to allow isolation in the case of are depicted as examples in Fig. 5(a). These cut-sets cross the
an upstream fault. The SNPR operation is similar to a regular feeder lines connected to GVs and SVs as well as the feeder
network protector in all modes except for the Sensitive Trip breaker or a feeder line. Ideally, the cut-set encompasses the
mode. In the Sensitive Trip mode a regular MNPR detects a re- entire feeder’s borders with the secondary network. However, a
verse power flow and initiates a trip assuming fault occurrence smaller portion of the feeder can also be chosen to simplify the
in the upstream feeder. In the presence of PV units, a regular circuit.
MNPR does not differentiate between the reverse flow due to Next, the summation of all measured currents in the selected
an upstream fault and that due to the excess PV power. Avail- cut-set is obtained. If the summation is zero, the power only
able solutions target the power generation from PVs (DGs in travels through the cut-set; i.e., power flows in the forward or
general) in order to prevent reverse power flow. These solutions reverse direction through the cut-set with no leak inside the
either limit the power generation by PV units to the customer’s cut-set. If the currents’ sum is not zero, power is consumed
minimum load consumption, or they require a large communi- within the cut-set; i.e., a fault exists in the cut-set. It should
cation infrastructure that makes it possible to turn off the PV be mentioned that the proposed approach is conducted on each
units by the utility control center when reverse power is detected phase separately. That is, each phase has a separate cut-set that
[7], [23]. This can cause customer complaints and is a waste of examines the currents into the cut-set and out of it. Fig. 5(b)
available renewable energy especially when network minimum depicts the three-phase representation of Cut-set 2 shown in
load is considered. On the other hand, this is not applicable to Fig. 5(a). The signed summation of these currents must add up
the currently installed PV units with high capacity (e.g., PV Ar- to zero for safe operation. Upstream load (if any) phase currents
rangement 1 explained in the next section). In contrast, by using are included in the summation. Thus, three-phase current im-
the SNPR, an algorithm is proposed to detect excess power and balance in the downtown network does not affect the detection
override the Sensitive Trip in this case. The proposed protection mechanism. Selection of the cut-set is critical as it must en-
mechanism does not limit the customers’ power generation nor compass a feeder or a part of a feeder along the feeder borders
does it need a comprehensive communication infrastructure to that includes network protectors. Also, the interior nodes must
communicate with the individual PV units. not include loads; that is, the load branches, if there are any
Proposed Excess Power Detection Method: The proposed in the feeder network, must lie on the cut-set itself (and thus
method is a generalized differential current protection method. the cut-set is non-planar). In summary, both the reverse power
First, a cut-set that surrounds part of the upstream feeder flow and the non-zero cut-set net current signal must exist for a
is obtained. This cut-set covers the protected upstream net- Sensitive Trip to be issued in the proposed SNPR as shown in
work including the network protectors that separate the feeder Fig. 6. The proposed SNPR aims to increase network reliability
MOHAMMADI AND MEHRAEEN: CHALLENGES OF PV INTEGRATION IN LOW-VOLTAGE SECONDARY NETWORKS 529

approaches singularity and more reactive power support is re-

quired to maintain the voltage.

A. PV Arrangements
PV power allocation varies by costumers’ locations and inter-
est. It is reasonable to assume that with higher PV penetration
the chances of reverse power flow is increased. The PV power
Fig. 6. Smart Network Protector Relay (SNPR) sensitive trip logic. penetration can be either high-generation sites, such as large
buildings or large utility-owned solar generators, or distributed
PV power generation. In the latter form, one can reasonably
while being simple as a feasible upgrade for available MNPRs. assume that the amount of power generation at each node is
Communication between the cut-set current measurements are proportional to the nominal load at that node. Consequently,
to be performed and the results are transmitted to all the cut-set three PV arrangements are considered in this study and are re-
SNPRs in six cycles for effective operation. Since the proposed ferred to as Arrangements 1, 2, and 3.
mechanism is only applied to the upstream network, a smaller Arrangement 1 (Distributed): This arrangement is com-
network is targeted, and thus the communications infrastructure prised of distributed PV units across all the downtown network
is not large and can be as small as a feeder or a part of a feeder. loads. In this arrangement PV units are at 228 loaded nodes.
Many studies have proposed communications infrastructure Power of the PV unit at each node in Arrangement 1 is varied
for control and monitoring of DG units and the distribution from 15% to 150% of the full load of the node. That is, all the
network containing them [11]–[15]. However, in the proposed PV generators experience 5%, 15%, 30%, 45%,. . ., and 150%
SNPR, communicating with a large number of PV units is not of their corresponding node’s full load, simultaneously.
required. Rather, the communications system transmits a small Arrangement 2 (Lump): This arrangement consists of 56
amount of data which is the value of the measured cut-set cur- large PV units installed on 56 Large and Very Large Loads
rents to and from the cut-set control center, that can be one (see Table II) in grid and spot networks. Total power of PV
of the SNPRs. Alternatively, the current transformers can be in Arrangement 2 is varied from 5% to 150% of the full load
connected in parallel such that the current summation can be of the entire downtown network similar to the previous case.
physically obtained. For instance, at 150% penetration, PV Arrangement 2 has a to-
It should also be mentioned that changing the setting of the tal capacity of 1.5 times the total downtown network full load
existing network protectors to allow higher reverse power flow (33.6 MW); that is, 50.4 MW is distributed among 56 PV units
is challenging since high-impedance and single-phase faults, proportional to their corresponding node’s load size.
which are low power faults in nature, may be missed and cause Arrangement 3 (Residential): This arrangement contains
damage to the critical downtown underground network. In ad- PV generation on the loads less than 200 KW in the grid net-
dition, hourly and intermittent changes of solar power make the work, which are 172 loads in this study with a total of 10.12 MW
relay setting a difficult task. power consumption. In this arrangement, each installed PV unit
generates power varying from 5% to 150% of its corresponding
III. MNPR OPERATION node’s full load similar to Arrangement 1.
In this section, detailed studies of MNPR operation are dis-
cussed. The solar power generated by the PV panels inside the B. MNPR Trip Statistics
downtown network cause changes in the feeder and line cur- The network protector’s primary task is to protect the up-
rents that can lead to network protector false trips and/or line stream network and transformers. The transformers connect the
and transformer overloads. In the following discussion different upstream feeders to the secondary network and are protected
cases of solar and load powers are considered; then, voltage against reverse power flow and overload. As the PV penetra-
profile and stability as well as line and transformer overloads tion level rises, the chances of transformer disconnects due to
are studied. reverse flow increase. Also, transformer overload can occur if
One of the major consequences of the network protector trips a large share of disconnected transformers is burdened on the
is the change in the feeders’ injected reactive and active power connected ones. If all connections to a load are disconnected,
patterns that may lead to reactive power shortage, in the pres- the load and its PV generator are removed from the analysis.
ence of unity-power factor solar power, followed by voltage This is usually the case when a spot network sends power to
instability. As the number of disconnected network protectors all of its connected upstream feeders, and thus all its network
increases, network connectivity to the upstream feeder network protectors trip.
decreases leading to a less stable downtown network. The effect The MNPRs are first simulated under hourly load and solar
of the downtown network connectivity on the voltage stability power for different seasons of the year. The solar power mea-
is studied through the lowest eigenvalue of the network Ja- sured by the authors, as well as the load profiles provided by
cobian matrix. Here, all PV units are considered as constant the utility company, for the full year of 2015 are utilized here.
power generations, and thus bus voltages are not controlled. As Figs. 7(a) and (c) illustrate load patterns of days with typical and
the minimum eigenvalue approaches zero, the Jacobian matrix minimum load profile in the summer and winter. Fig. 7(b) and
530 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 32, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2017

that are capable of generating reactive power are now under

development [25] and study, and their full deployment requires
sophisticated control mechanisms along with a comprehensive
communication structure. Even with the smart inverters, iso-
lation of the downtown network protector from the upstream
feeder network can occur leading to an islanded downtown net-
work. Since all loads are equipped with PV power proportional
to their full load demand, the reverse flow does not occur when
the PV generation falls below the load demand as shown in
Table III. However, when the PV generation exceeds the load
demand, both reverse flow and MNPR trips occur in large num-
bers leading to voltage instability. One outcome of this result
is the possibility of voltage collapse around noon when all PV
power reserve is in place (as suggested by Figs. 8 and 9). When
the system experiences minimum load, the voltage instability
occurs at significantly lower PV power levels.
Tables IV and V illustrate the trip statistics when Arrange-
ments 2 and 3 are adopted. In Table IV, when PV power penetra-
tion level is 150% (of full load) at network full load condition,
395 incidents of reclose occur in 15 rounds of cascaded trip in-
cidents leading to a final 111 tripped MNPRs at which point the
network voltage stability is undermined. In the cascaded trips,
several rounds of trips and/or reclose operation occur before
the network settles down to a steady configuration. One round
of MNPR trips pushes the extra power towards other network
protectors and causes a separate round of trips in other network
protectors and/or causes some of the tripped MNPRs to reclose.
This may repeat a few times before the network comes to a final
configuration as shown in Table IV. This phenomenon may lead
Fig. 7. Seasons: minimum and typical load profiles, maximum and typical
PV power. (a) Summer days load profile (b) Summer days PV power (c) Winter to pumping (which happens more severely with Arrangements
days load profile (d) Winter days PV power. 2 and 3). In addition, MNPR trip incidents leave lower paths
for extra power to flow toward the upstream network or for
demanded power to flow towards loads. As the excess power
(d) present normalized PV power of days with typical and max- is guided through fewer numbers of transformers, the chance
imum solar power generation in the summer and winter. The of transformer overload increases and additional trips due to
numbers of MNPR trips are presented in Fig. 8 using typical overload occur.
load profile and typical PV power for different scenarios of PV With Arrangement 3, the total PV power generation is lower
Arrangements 1 and 2 in each season. The PV% in the figure than with the other two arrangements, and thus PV generation
represents the maximum power capacity of individual PV units is never higher than the downtown network’s full load. Conse-
(that occurs at summer noon time) with respect to their pertinent quently, voltage instability does not occur in the case with full
customer full load. In order to consider the worst case, Fig. 9 load. As the network experiences the minimum load, one can
presents similar scenarios using minimum load and maximum expect a large number of MNPR trips and voltage instability
PV power for similar arrangements for each season. It is shown at higher penetration levels than in Arrangement 1 as shown
in the figures that in the cases where the solar power is greater in Table V. In several PV power levels with Arrangement 3, a
than that of the load (mostly around noon time) excessive MNPR number of cascaded trips occur that involve reclose actions. At
trips occur, leading to voltage instability in some cases. the network minimum load, when PV power is between 30%
In addition, Tables III through V present various solar power and 75%, the number of trip-reclose incidents is significantly
penetration and loads statistics independent of the time of the high and pumping occurs.
day. Table III shows the number of tripped network protectors Next, the voltage stability metric introduced earlier is shown
(transformers) versus PV penetration levels for Arrangement 1 in Table VI for Arrangement 3. One can observe that as the
at the network’s historical minimum and full load conditions number of false trips increases, the feeder network’s average
that are 16% and 100% of the downtown network’s full load, reactive power injection through the remaining connected trans-
respectively. The shaded rows in the table illustrate cases where formers increases and the smallest eigenvalue approaches zero.
voltage instability and collapse occur due to reactive power The negative eigenvalue occurs where network voltage collapse
shortage fed by upstream feeders. Recall that PV panels usually is predicted by Table V for this arrangement. The other Arrange-
operate at unity power factor to increase efficiency, and thus ments show similar behavior but are not shown here due to lack
are not sources of reactive power. The emerging smart inverters of space.
MOHAMMADI AND MEHRAEEN: CHALLENGES OF PV INTEGRATION IN LOW-VOLTAGE SECONDARY NETWORKS 531

Fig. 8. Number of tripped MNPRs with typical hourly load and typical solar power for different seasons and PV arrangements. (a) Summer-PV arrangement 1,
(b) Summer-PV arrangement 2, (c) Winter-PV arrangement 1, (d) Winter-PV arrangement 2.

Fig. 9. Number of tripped MNPRs with minimum hourly load and maximum solar power for different seasons and PV arrangements. (a) Summer-PV arrangement
1, (b) Summer-PV arrangement 2, (c) Winter-PV arrangement 1, (d) Winter-PV arrangement 2.

TABLE III TABLE IV

MNPR OPERATIONS IN THE CASE: PV ARRANGEMENT 1 MNPR OPERATIONS IN THE CASE: PV ARRANGEMENT 2

C. Distribution Line Overload Statistics condition when no PV generation exists in the network. This
result is conservative in the sense that the actual overload ca-
The PV generation inside the downtown network may affect pability of the distribution lines may be higher in the actual
the distribution lines’ loading and cause them to overload. The network. However, this data was not available. Also, no line
number of overloaded lines in the network increases with the disconnect is assumed due to overload since the loadability of
PV power. Table VII summarizes the distribution line overload individual lines were not known.
incidents as a function of PV power level for Arrangements 1,
2, and 3 at full and minimum loads. As predicted, with dis-
D. MNPR Reclose Operation
tributed PV power generation the likelihood of line overload is
lower. Here, the overload level is considered as 105% of the The default reclose voltage setting of the relay simulated in
underground line current at the downtown network full load this study is 1.4 V (VD = 1.4 V) [24]. The relay reclose voltage
532 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 32, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2017

TABLE V penetration scenario is arranged to show the pumping effect.

MNPR OPERATIONS IN THE CASE: PV ARRANGEMENT 3
At the MNPR in Grid Vault 29 fed by Feeder 4, the voltage
difference is VD = 1.87 V > 1.4 V; and at the MNPR in Grid
Vault 44 fed by Feeder 7, VD = 1.62 V > 1.4 V after the trip
due to reverse power flow. Thus, the two network protectors in
the vaults are ready to reclose. However, after MNPRs reclosed,
both transformers see reverse power again and subsequently
trip. This process will continue leading to excessive relay oper-
ations which is known as pumping [20]. Allowing the network
protector to close with a small difference voltage magnitude can
lead to pumping in certain arrangements and penetration levels
as observed. However, it can be seen that when the threshold is
increased to 2 V, pumping does not occur when the MNPR is
used. As expected, pumping due to reverse power does not occur
when SNPR is utilized in either reclose setting case illustrated.

IV. CASE STUDIES FOR SNPR

The results obtained in previous sections indicate network
TABLE VI
VOLTAGE STABILITY METRICS FOR CASES WITH PV ARRANGEMENT 3 protector false operations in the presence of PV power genera-
tion inside the network. Currently, the network protectors can’t
Full Load Minimum Load
differentiate between PV excess power flow and an upstream
fault. That is, the network protectors trip the circuit once they
PV% Minimum Average Q per Minimum Average Q per sense a reverse flow regardless of its cause. The MNPR false trip
Eigenvalue NPs [pu] Eigenvalue NPs [pu]
can destabilize the network as discussed in the previous section.
5 0.21 0.0683 0.22 0.010 The idea of a smart network protector was explained earlier
15 0.21 0.0679 0.22 0.010 in Section II. Here, the smart network protector is applied by
30 0.21 0.0672 0.09 0.013
45 0.21 0.0669 4.2e-15 0.017 upgrading regular network protectors with an overriding logic.
60 0.21 0.0664 5.0e-15 0.018 This overriding logic prevents false tripping when reverse flow
75 0.21 0.0660 0.08 0.019 is originated from PV excess power generation in downstream
90 0.21 0.0656 −8.9 0.020
105 0.21 0.0653 −21.45 0.021 branches. Thus, in the case where there is no fault in the upstream
120 0.10 0.0662 −163.3 0.022 feeder with reverse flow, the smart network protector avoids
135 0.10 0.0678 −20.52 0.023 circuit disconnection. Consequently, it is expected that no trips
150 0.16 0.0731 −2.1 0.024
occur unless transformer overload limits are reached. Here, the
PV Arrangement 2 with 120% PV penetration is considered
TABLE VII (from Table IV) and Feeder 1 is selected to show the operation
OVERLOADED NETWORK LINES IN DIFFERENT CASES of the SNPR in differentiating between an upstream fault and PV
excess power. Fig. 10 presents the topology of feeder 1 where
a cut-set similar to that of Fig. 5 crosses all of the upstream
boarder nodes (nodes depicted in red). Under normal operation,
the summation of the currents from all the vaults is equal to that
of the main breaker considering no line losses. These values are
given in Table VIII where positive currents represent current
directions into the cut-set. It is shown that the sum of the signed
currents equals 0.0053 + j0.0105 under the PV excess power;
a small value that indicates excess power only. Next, a three-
phase high-impedance fault of 0.1 p.u (power) is introduced
in the upstream Feeder 1 on node F1 Node036 as depicted in
Fig. 10. This time the currents of the feeder cut-set sum up to
0.0213 + j0.0105. This larger current summation is an indicator
of an upstream fault. Thus, the SNPRs observing reverse power
(all Feeder 1 SNPRs according to Table VIII) are allowed to
trip.
setting establishes the minimum difference voltage required to
issue a reclose command when the feeder voltage and network
A. Cloud Effect
voltage are in phase. With the default reclose setting, a number
of network protectors that are tripped due to reverse power flow The intermittent nature of PV power causes injected power
will reclose after the reclose cycle has passed. A solar power variations at downtown network nodes. In this research,
MOHAMMADI AND MEHRAEEN: CHALLENGES OF PV INTEGRATION IN LOW-VOLTAGE SECONDARY NETWORKS 533

Fig. 11. Node 562 voltage variations due to cloud.

Fig. 10. Node 562 voltage variations due to cloud.

TABLE VIII
SNPR OPERATION FOR THE CASE WITH 120% PV PENETRATION
AND MINIMUM LOAD IN PV ARRANGEMENT 2
Fig. 12. Network’s voltage profile during full load.

for cloud discussions. The PV power is measured through a

140-Watt solar panel connected to a resistive load. A Fluke-43B
data acquisition system is used, along with LabVIEW software,
to capture the voltage every four seconds. One of the days in
winter with the most PV power variation is chosen and the maxi-
mum power level fall and duration are obtained. Then the cloud
assignment is determined by considering T up = −a × lnU1
and T down = −b × lnU2 where U1 and U2 are uniformly dis-
tributed random numbers in the range [0, 1] and a and b are
average up and down times in the solar irradiation. The power
drop is generated through a uniformly distributed random num-
ber in the range of zero to 60% solar irradiance drop. Subse-
quently, 228 random variable power levels are generated using
the random distribution functions explained above and are ap-
plied to all load nodes in Arrangement 1 at 100% (of full load)
penetration level. At this level, no reverse power is observed by
MNPRs, and thus no MNPR trips occur. It is observed that at
some nodes, voltage flicker in the range of “visible” occurs as
shown in Fig. 11 based on IEEE 519 definitions [21]. With the
SNPR and higher PV power levels, voltage flicker increases.
Higher penetration of the solar power in the downtown network
scattered cloud movement effects are considered by randomly
causes more power fluctuations due to cloud movements, and
assigning power drop at PV generation locations throughout
thus more flicker is observed in the downtown network.
the secondary network at high PV power levels. In order to
generate the random power, solar power was measured over
a course of twelve months in 2015 at Louisiana State Uni- B. Voltage Profile
versity. After investigating the measured data in all seasons, DG has been shown to affect the voltage profile in sec-
winter (where solar power variation is significant) is chosen ondary networks [4], [9], [22]. Voltage analysis of the selected
534 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 32, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2017

[4] C. Po-Chen et al., “Analysis of voltage profile problems due to the

penetration of distributed generation in low-voltage secondary distribution
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[5] L. F. Ochoa and G. P. Harrison, “Minimizing energy losses: Optimal
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[6] T. Brown, “Transmission network loading in Europe with high shares of
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[8] H. Hooshyar and M. E. Baran, “Fault analysis on distribution feeders with
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[10] H. Cheung, A. Hamlyn, L. Wang, C. Yang, and R. Cheung, “Investigations
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[11] H. Yazdanpanahi, Y. W. Li, and W. Xu, “A new control strategy to mitigate
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considering SNPRs to allow higher penetration levels. With the works,” IEEE Trans. Sustain. Energy, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 663–672, Apr.
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voltage collapse where no voltage is established. [14] M. A. Zamani, A. Yazdani, and T. S. Sidhu, “A communication-assisted
protection strategy for inverter-based medium-voltage microgrids,” IEEE
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nication in distribution generation teleprotection schemes,” in Proc. 65th
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MOHAMMADI AND MEHRAEEN: CHALLENGES OF PV INTEGRATION IN LOW-VOLTAGE SECONDARY NETWORKS 535

P. Mohammadi (S’15) received the B.S. degree in S. Mehraeen (S’08–M’10) received the B.S. degree
electrical engineering from Iran University of Sci- in electrical engineering from Iran University of Sci-
ence and Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 2010, the M.S. ence and Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 1995, the M.S.
degree in power system and protection from the Uni- degree in electrical engineering from Esfahan Uni-
versity of Texas at Tyler, Tyler, TX, USA, in 2013, and versity of Technology, Esfahan, Iran, in 2001, and
the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineer- the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Mis-
ing from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, souri University of Science and Technology, Rolla,
LA, USA. MO, USA, in 2009.
He has conducted several projects for utility com- He joined the Louisiana State University, Baton
panies during his education and holds three patents. Rouge, LA, USA, as an Assistant Professor in 2010.
His research interests also include smart grids, re- His current research interests include microgrids, re-
newable energies, phasor measurement unit (PMU) applications, intelligent and newable energies, power systems dynamics, protection, and smart grids. In
adaptive methods in power systems, and storage devices. His current research addition, he conducts research on decentralized, adaptive, and optimal control
includes power system protection, optimal PMU placement (OPP), observabil- of dynamical systems.
ity and state estimation, and distributed-generation integration. Prof. Mehraeen is a National Science Foundation CAREER awardee and
holds a U.S. patent on energy harvesting.

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