Voltage profile improvement in a microgrid including PV units using genetic algorithm

With the increasing concerns on conventional energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions, the energy industry is experiencing fundamental changes. Consequently, more Distributed Energy Resource (DER) and Distributed Generation (DG) units are being connected to the grid. To decrease the transmission losses, many of the DGs are set up locally near the customers. As a result of meteorological variations, the output power generated from green energy, such as photovoltaic, wind power, etc., is variable. So, with increasing penetration of DGs in power systems, a number of challenges are introduced such as, voltage regulation problems. In this paper, the aim is optimal control of distribution voltage using DGs characteristics, such as power factor and distributed installations, such as Step Voltage Regulator (SVR), shunt reactor and capacitor, Load Ratio control Transformer (LRT), and Static VAr Compensator (SVC). To optimize this problem, the genetic algorithm is used. For validation purposes and showing the effectiveness of this method, it is applied to a distribution network model including two DGs.