Comparative analysis of power ramp rate control strategies for photovoltaic systems

• Main Authors: Yan, Hein Wai, Liang, Gaowen, Rodriguez, Ezequiel, Beniwal, Neha, Farivar, Glen G., Pou, Josep
• Other Authors: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Electric power::Production, transmission and distribution; Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Power electronics; Battery Energy Storage System; Photovoltaic; Power Ramp Rate Control; Power Smoothing
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/172012
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Intermittent changes in irradiance caused by passing clouds inevitably lead to fluctuations in photovoltaic (PV) power generation. To ensure the stability of a power grid with integrated solar PV generation, a battery energy storage system (BESS) is an intrinsic solution to effectively process the PV power before transmitting it into the grid. Alternatively, a PV software-based ramp rate (RR) control can be applied to mitigate the PV power fluctuations without any BESS, which is known to be cost-effective. The contribution of this paper is to compare various BESS-based and cost-effective software-based RR control strategies operating with real-time measured information, and analyze their effectiveness in regulating the PV power fluctuations. Furthermore, this paper studies the BESS utilization behavior among hardware-based control strategies, and also provides insights into which strategy is more appropriate for specific applications. The investigations are carried out through simulation case studies with a real-field one-day fluctuated irradiance profile.