Experimental Evaluation of Load Rejection Over-Voltage from Grid-Tied Solar Inverters

Austin Nelson; Anderson Hoke; Justin Chebahtah; Trudie Wang; Brian Zimmerly; Michael Ropp; Sudipta Chakraborty

doi:10.1109/PVSC.2015.7356399

Experimental Evaluation of Load Rejection Over-Voltage from Grid-Tied Solar Inverters

Austin Nelson, Anderson Hoke, Justin Chebahtah, Trudie Wang, Brian Zimmerly, Michael Ropp, Sudipta Chakraborty

Power Systems Engineering

Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper › peer-review

11 Scopus Citations

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of load rejection over-voltage (LRO) from commercially available grid-tied photovoltaic (PV) inverters. LRO can occur when a breaker opens and the power output from a distributed energy resource (DER) exceeds the load. Simplified models of current-controlled inverters can over-predict LRO magnitudes, thus it is useful to quantify the effect through laboratory testing. The load rejection event was replicated using a hardware testbed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and a set of commercially available PV inverters was tested to quantify the impact of LRO for a range of generation-to-load ratios. The magnitude and duration of the over-voltage events are reported in this paper along with a discussion of characteristic inverter output behavior. The results for the inverters under test showed that maximum over-voltage magnitudes were less than 200% of nominal voltage, and much lower in many test cases. These research results are important because utilities that interconnect inverter-based DER need to understand their characteristics under abnormal grid conditions.

Original language	American English
Number of pages	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/PVSC.2015.7356399 https://doi.org/10.1109/PVSC.2015.7356399
State	Published - 14 Dec 2015
Event	42nd IEEE Photovoltaic Specialist Conference, PVSC 2015 - New Orleans, United States Duration: 14 Jun 2015 → 19 Jun 2015

Conference

Conference	42nd IEEE Photovoltaic Specialist Conference, PVSC 2015
Country/Territory	United States
City	New Orleans
Period	14/06/15 → 19/06/15

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 IEEE.

NREL Publication Number

NREL/CP-5D00-63597

Keywords

distributed energy
electric power systems
Inverter
load rejection over-voltage
photovoltaic

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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Nelson, A., Hoke, A., Chebahtah, J., Wang, T., Zimmerly, B., Ropp, M., & Chakraborty, S. (2015). Experimental Evaluation of Load Rejection Over-Voltage from Grid-Tied Solar Inverters. Paper presented at 42nd IEEE Photovoltaic Specialist Conference, PVSC 2015, New Orleans, United States. https://doi.org/10.1109/PVSC.2015.7356399, https://doi.org/10.1109/PVSC.2015.7356399

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Nelson, A, Hoke, A, Chebahtah, J, Wang, T, Zimmerly, B, Ropp, M & Chakraborty, S 2015, 'Experimental Evaluation of Load Rejection Over-Voltage from Grid-Tied Solar Inverters', Paper presented at 42nd IEEE Photovoltaic Specialist Conference, PVSC 2015, New Orleans, United States, 14/06/15 - 19/06/15. https://doi.org/10.1109/PVSC.2015.7356399, https://doi.org/10.1109/PVSC.2015.7356399

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AU - Ropp, Michael

AU - Chakraborty, Sudipta

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N2 - This paper investigates the impact of load rejection over-voltage (LRO) from commercially available grid-tied photovoltaic (PV) inverters. LRO can occur when a breaker opens and the power output from a distributed energy resource (DER) exceeds the load. Simplified models of current-controlled inverters can over-predict LRO magnitudes, thus it is useful to quantify the effect through laboratory testing. The load rejection event was replicated using a hardware testbed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and a set of commercially available PV inverters was tested to quantify the impact of LRO for a range of generation-to-load ratios. The magnitude and duration of the over-voltage events are reported in this paper along with a discussion of characteristic inverter output behavior. The results for the inverters under test showed that maximum over-voltage magnitudes were less than 200% of nominal voltage, and much lower in many test cases. These research results are important because utilities that interconnect inverter-based DER need to understand their characteristics under abnormal grid conditions.

AB - This paper investigates the impact of load rejection over-voltage (LRO) from commercially available grid-tied photovoltaic (PV) inverters. LRO can occur when a breaker opens and the power output from a distributed energy resource (DER) exceeds the load. Simplified models of current-controlled inverters can over-predict LRO magnitudes, thus it is useful to quantify the effect through laboratory testing. The load rejection event was replicated using a hardware testbed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and a set of commercially available PV inverters was tested to quantify the impact of LRO for a range of generation-to-load ratios. The magnitude and duration of the over-voltage events are reported in this paper along with a discussion of characteristic inverter output behavior. The results for the inverters under test showed that maximum over-voltage magnitudes were less than 200% of nominal voltage, and much lower in many test cases. These research results are important because utilities that interconnect inverter-based DER need to understand their characteristics under abnormal grid conditions.

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KW - electric power systems

KW - Inverter

KW - load rejection over-voltage

KW - photovoltaic

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ER -

Experimental Evaluation of Load Rejection Over-Voltage from Grid-Tied Solar Inverters

Abstract

Conference

Bibliographical note

NREL Publication Number

Keywords

UN SDGs

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