Demonstrating coordinated voltage control in a real distribution network

The connection of distributed generation (DG) to weak distribution networks is likely to cause voltage rise problems. At present, the voltage rise is usually mitigated by reinforcing the network but as the penetration level of DG increases also active voltage control methods need to be taken into use. Active voltage control has been a subject of extensive research in the past decade but the number of real implementations is still very low. One reason for this is that only few demonstrations have been conducted in real distribution networks. In this paper, the operation of one coordinated voltage control (CVC) algorithm is successfully demonstrated in a real Finnish distribution network. The main objective of the paper is to identify the problems that may arise when academic smart grid methods are implemented in real electricity networks. The second objective is to verify the operation of the studied CVC algorithm.