Enhanced experimental PV plant grid-integration with a MW Lithium-Ion energy storage system

In this paper an enhanced experimental photovoltaic (PV) plant configuration including a storage system and a centralized plant controller is presented as a solution to improve PV systems integration into the grid. The paper is focused on the description of the plant control architecture and the strategies to comply with new interconnection requirements. Two different operation modes are explained, one of them without considering the Energy Storage System (ESS) and the other one using the ESS support. The proposed control architecture and strategies have been first implemented and verified on a real-time simulation platform using the real physical plant controller, and then, experimentally validated in a 1.2MW PV plant located in Tudela (Navarre, Spain) and owned by Acciona Energía, demonstrating a considerable grid-integration improvement.