Smart Solar PV Inverters with Advanced Grid Support Functionalities

Learn the fundamentals of smart photovoltaic (PV) inverter technology with this insightful one-stop resource

Smart Solar PV Inverters with Advanced Grid Support Functionalities presents a comprehensive coverage of smart PV inverter technologies in alleviating grid integration challenges of solar PV systems and for additionally enhancing grid reliability. Accomplished author Rajiv Varma systematically integrates information from the wealth of knowledge on smart inverters available from EPRI, NREL, NERC, SIWG, EU-PVSEC, CIGRE, IEEE publications; and utility experiences worldwide. The book further presents a novel, author-developed and patented smart inverter technology for utilizing solar PV plants both in the night and day as a Flexible AC Transmission System (FACTS) Controller STATCOM, named PV-STATCOM. Replete with case studies, this book includes over 600 references and 280 illustrations.

Smart Solar PV Inverters with Advanced Grid Support Functionalities’ features include:

• Concepts of active and reactive power control; description of different smart inverter functions, and modeling of smart PV inverter systems
• Distribution system applications of PV-STATCOM for dynamic voltage control, enhancing connectivity of solar PV and wind farms, and stabilization of critical motors
• Transmission system applications of PV-STATCOM for improving power transfer capacity, power oscillation damping (POD), suppression of subsynchronous oscillations, mitigation of fault induced delayed voltage recovery (FIDVR), and fast frequency response (FFR) with POD
• Hosting capacity for solar PV systems, its enhancement through effective settings of different smart inverter functions; and control coordination of smart PV inverters
• Emerging smart inverter grid support functions and their pioneering field demonstrations worldwide, including Canada, USA, UK, Chile, China, and India.

Perfect for system planners and system operators, utility engineers, inverter manufacturers and solar farm developers, this book will prove to be an important resource for academics and graduate students involved in electrical power and renewable energy systems.

Rajiv K. Varma is Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Western Ontario in London, ON, Canada. He is an internationally renowned researcher in FACTS and grid integration of solar PV and wind power systems. He received the prestigious IEEE PES Nari Hingorani FACTS Award in 2021 “for advancing FACTS controllers application in education, research, and professional society, and for developing an innovative STATCOM technology utilizing PV solar farms.” He became a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering in 2021 with the citation, “…Among his pioneering contributions has been a major ground-breaking utility-implemented award-winning technology, PV-STATCOM, that enables solar PV plants to provide FACTS functionalities at one-tenth cost of FACTS themselves…”