Pseudo-gradient Based Local Voltage Control in Distribution Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a pseudo-gradient based local voltage control algorithm for distribution networks, addressing the challenges posed by increasing distributed energy resources and improving convergence properties.

Contribution

It proposes a novel voltage control method that is unconstrained, simple to implement, and offers better convergence characteristics compared to existing algorithms.

Findings

The proposed algorithm converges under broader conditions.

It demonstrates faster convergence rates than previous methods.

The control scheme is low complexity and adaptable.

Abstract

Voltage regulation is critical for power grids. However, it has become a much more challenging problem as distributed energy resources (DERs) such as photovoltaic and wind generators are increasingly deployed, causing rapid voltage fluctuations beyond what can be handled by the traditional voltage regulation methods. In this paper, motivated by two previously proposed inverter-based local volt/var control algorithms, we propose a pseudo-gradient based voltage control algorithm for the distribution network that does not constrain the allowable control functions and has low implementation complexity. We characterize the convergence of the proposed voltage control scheme, and compare it against the two previous algorithms in terms of the convergence condition as well as the convergence rate.