Improving photovoltaic and electric vehicle penetration in distribution grids with smart transformer

High penetration of electrical vehicles (EVs) and photovoltaics (PVs) can cause significant voltage issues in low voltage distribution grids. To certain extent, the transformer with on-load tap changers can regulate its output voltage, thus relieving the voltage issues and improve the hosting capacity of the grid. Smart transformer (ST) is a more powerful component providing faster and superior voltage regulation, as it can regulate the voltage, the frequency and the harmonic behavior of each feeder. This paper will discuss the benefit of this new feature offered by ST through simulation, analysis and comparison with traditional transformer, where load flow analysis, optimization and multiple line drop compensation (MLDC) methods are involved.