Journal of Power Electronics & Power Systems

ISSN: 2249-863X(online), ISSN: 2321-4244(print)

Volume 6, Issue 1
www.stmjournals.com

Photovoltaic Solar Farms Operating in

VAR Mode: A Review
Niraj Solanki*, Jatinkumar Patel
Department of Electrical Engineering, GCET, Vallabh Vidyanagar, Gujarat, India

Abstract
The PV solar inverter plays a vital role in solar farms for electrical power generation at
distribution end. By generating active power, such at lower distributed end results like voltage
rise issues and voltage fluctuations which affect power quality standards. Increasing
penetration level of distributed generation sources connected to the power system cause
increasing reverse power flow when demand is not adequate, which raises the voltage level at
point of common coupling at grid connection. For regulation of voltage at such PCC, FACTs
devices based on power electronic converter are in practice. During night time or some
cloudy days, when PV system is unable to generate active power, photovoltaic inverters are
utilized for reactive power support to the grid. Here, various control techniques for utilization
of PV inverter operating in VAR mode are reviewed. When active power is not available by
PV inverter, various methodologies for reactive power control, voltage regulation and control
of load reactive power have been mentioned by useful literature survey. The role of inverter as
FACTs device for reactive power compensation is elaborated comprehensively.

Keywords: PV solar farms, FACTs, PV-STATCOM, PCC voltage regulation, VAR

compensation

*Author for Correspondence E-mail: nirajsolanki85@gmail.com

INTRODUCTION operation. It is located in San Luis Obispo

Solar energy is most widely available in non- County and has 9 million solar panels. In India
conventional energy sources and it can play the largest PV solar park is Charanka in
major role in the program of reducing Gujarat with 221 MW capacity.
emissions of greenhouse gases. It is growing
worldwide, with 25–35% annual growth rate CONVENTIONAL PV SYSTEM
in last ten years. Solar PV appears as a PV system generally consist of photovoltaic
reliable, cost-competitive and sustainable panels, an inverter, control system of the
electricity source in a growing number of inverter and battery energy storage system. PV
countries. It is more growing due to PV prices solar panels convert photovoltaic energy into
reduced by 40% in the last three years. DC electric energy and inverter converts it into
AC electric energy.
Different incentive programs have been
introduced by various countries to encourage
use of PV systems. After having reached close
to 40 GW in 2014, around 55 GW of solar
capacity is expected to be added globally in
end of in 2015. By the end of 2014, total
installed capacity for solar PV is around
177 GW in the world [1]. These global
installations are now producing more than 1%
of the electricity used on the earth [2].

California’s Topaz project is the largest solar

power plant in the world with a 550 MW
generation capacity, and it is now in full Fig. 1: Grid Connected PV System.

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Photovoltaic Solar Farms Solanki and Patel

The power output of PV inverter can be
controlled by control system. It can be divided
into two types; stand-alone and grid-connected
system. Installation of grid-connected PV
systems is increasing for the reason of several
advantages in comparison to the stand-alone
PV system. It doesn’t need any expensive
energy storage system. Figure 1 shows the grid
connected PV system [3, 4].
Generally different types of PV inverter
topologies are used in practice in which one is
the string technique where several PV modules
connected in string configuration are fed in to
a single large inverter; and the other is known
as the micro-inverter where each individual
module has its own inverter and output of all
the micro-inverters are integrated together to
feed the grid. There are numbers of inverter
topologies used for grid connected PV system.
There are single step topologies for AC
module, two-stage multiple module topology,
multilevel inverter topology, fly back type
inverters, and all the different topologies are
used in practice [5]. The voltage source
inverter is controlled with either voltage
control or current control scheme. Various
switching techniques like PWM, SVM,
hysteresis etc. are used in inverter switching
control [6, 7]. The grid tied PV inverter must
synchronize its frequency with that of
distribution grid. Phase locked loop (PLL)
technique widely used for grid synchronization
of PV system with distribution grid. PLL is the
device which keeps an output signal
synchronizing with an input reference signal in
frequency as well as in phase [8, 9].
The simulations of PV system by using
various commercial softwares like MATLAB,
PSCAD are found in several researches [10–
12]. The solar farm is required to inject power
to the grid at near to unity power factor
according to DG interconnection standards
IEEE 1547 [13]. In the condition of faults and
other disturbances, when the frequency or
voltage at point of common coupling (PCC) is
deviated from their base values then IEEE
1547 recommends to disconnect the
distribution generation. Tables 1 and 2 define
allowable deviations in voltage and frequency
as per updated IEEE-a1547 [14].

Table 1: Interconnection System Default Response to Abnormal Voltages [15].

Default Settings*
Voltage Range (% of Base Voltage**) Clearing Time (s) Clearing Time: Adjustable Up to and Including (s)
V<45 0.16 0.16
45≤V<60 1 11
60≤V<88 2 21
110<V<120 1 13
V≥120 0.16 0.16
*Under Mutual Agreement between the EPS and DR Operators, Other Static or Dynamic Voltage and Clearing Time Trip
Settings shall be Permitted;
**Base Voltages are the Nominal System Voltages Stated in ANSI C84.1-2011, Table 1 [15].

Table 2: Interconnection System Default Response to Abnormal Frequencies [15].

Default Settings Ranges of Adjustability
Frequency Clearing Time Frequency
Function Clearing Time (s) Adjustable Up to and Including
(Hz) (s) (Hz)
UF1 <57 0.16 56–60 10
UF2 <59.5 2 56–60 300
OF1 >60.5 2 60–64 300
OF2 >62 0.16 60–64 10

Pproblems Related to Grid Connected
Renewable Energy System
Penetration of the renewable energy sources is
now increasing and dependence on these
resources to support load demand in power
distribution system is also increasing. Due to
the intermittent nature of wind and solar
energy resources, a reliability of distributed
generation (DG) is a major concern. A
photovoltaic (PV) solar farm generates near to
the rated maximum power during the day-
time. Various environmental conditions affect

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Journal of Power Electronics & Power Systems
Volume 6, Issue 1
ISSN: 2249-863X(online), ISSN: 2321-4244(print)

the output of the solar system like change in
solar radiations and temperature; cloudy
conditions etc. Large penetration of PV plants
can offset feeder loads and cause reverse
active power flow at distribution feeder [16].
This may affect coordination of over current
protection and the operation of line voltage
regulators, especially of those set to forward
operation mode and/or line drop
compensation. Intermittent nature of PV
systems can result in fluctuation on output
voltages which degrades the power quality.
Voltage rise and voltage fluctuations may lead
to frequent operation of voltage-controlled
capacitor banks, LTCs, and voltage regulators
which affect equipment life-cycle and increase
maintenance of those equipments [16–18]. To
maintain voltage regulation and mitigation of
power quality issues, utilities are used a power
electronic converter based FACTs devices [19,
20].
PV SOLAR FARM OPERATING IN
VAR MODE
From last several years, installation of
distributed generation (DG) is increasing in
the distribution system to support the energy
requirements. The advantage of DG is that it
can decrease costs of transmission and
distribution lines. In practice, the distributed
generators are connected with distribution grid
in parallel as shown in Figure 2. A distribution
generation is dominated by wind energy.
During the night time when load on the
feeders is lower compared to the daytime and
amount of power feeding to the grid increases
due to the increases in the wind speed, it can
causes reverse power flow PCC toward to the
grid. As a result, the voltages at PCC rise up to
their allowable limits (±5%) [13]. In such
condition, it is difficult for any type of DG to
keep alive with the grid.

Fig. 2: PV Solar Farm and Wind Farm Connected with Distribution Grid.

Fig. 3: Grid Connected PV Farm with Battery Energy Storage System [21].

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Photovoltaic Solar Farms Solanki and Patel

Fig. 4(a): Voltage Regulation by Absorbing Real Power from Grid [21].

Fig. 4(b): Voltage Regulation by Supplying Real Power to the Grid [21].

To control reverse power flowing through the
grid and to regulate voltage across point of
common coupling, photovoltaic inverter is
used with the reactive power compensation.
This paper presents utilization of PV inverter
for PCC voltage regulation and load
compensation by providing reactive power.
Different techniques have been developed by
researches to regulate PCC voltage by solar
farm inverter. The change in the conventional
controller is required to operate PV inverter in
reactive mode. Khadkikar et al. showed how
to regulate PCC voltage by using storage
batteries of PV farm with charging and
discharging it [21]. The solar farm with battery
charger configuration is shown in Figure 3. A
storage battery connected on DC side of the
solar inverter is discussed by Khadkikar et al.
[21]. As mentioned; a switch S1 is used to
connect the PV panels and switch S2 to
batteries. The control strategy showed that if
the power generated by a distribution

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Journal of Power Electronics & Power Systems
Volume 6, Issue 1
ISSN: 2249-863X(online), ISSN: 2321-4244(print)
generator was greater than load demand
connected downstream of the PCC, the excess
power flowed back towards the grid. In the
reviewed paper, the concept of exchange
(store/deliver) the real power from the feeder
by storage batteries of the solar farm has been
discussed. During wind, power generation
increases and causes reverse power flow to the
grid, the battery charging loop is activated and
part of the real power generated by wind farm
is extracted and utilized to charge the batteries
such that the voltage at PCC is regulated [22–
24]. Several batteries can be charged
simultaneously during high amount of reverse
power flow causing voltage rise at PCC, is
well explained. The better control can be
achieved by using more batteries, as shown in
Figure 4 [22].
Pyo et al. presented a novel operation method
of controlling of PV inverter with two-stage
control. In the ordinary condition PV system is
operated by maximum power point tracking
(MPPT) control scheme with constant power
factor but inverter of solar farm adjusts output
reactive power to control voltage [25]. The
mentioned control strategy as is shown in the
Figure 5.
In the proposed control scheme, initially
calculated active and reactive power output
reference for PV solar system according to
voltage and current relation of PV array by
Fig. 5: Operation Method for PCC Voltage Control by PV System [25].
JoPEPS (2016) 73-85 © STM Journals 2016. All Rights Reserved
MPPT controller. The current reference
determined by voltage controller is compared
with the output current of inverter. By using
PWM or hysteresis control technique, the
voltage at PCC in acceptable range is
obtained. In the voltage source inverter of a
PV solar plant has been developed to
compensate the voltage drop due to reactive
power for the distribution grid by varying its
reactive power in response to the measured
voltage at PCC in 1997, in Australia [26].
In actual practice, FACTs devices like SVC,
STATCOM are used to regulate the voltage
control at transmission lines. For the
distribution side D-STATCOM, DVR, DSSC
are popular due to the state of art of control
and accuracy [19]. It is reviewed popularly
that VSC plays important role for FACTs
devices and PV-solar farm. The utilization of
PV inverter as a STATCOM by providing
additional controller for voltage regulation
with conventional PV inverter control; this
recently researched work has been carried out
for use of PV inverter as a STATCOM for
various control quantities which is popularly
known as PV STATCOM. During night time
active power cannot be fed to the grid where
VSC based PV system plays key role for grid
voltage regulation by using entire rated
capacity of it. Varma et al. have suggested
control system for PV STATCOM, as
explained in Figure 6 [27].
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Photovoltaic Solar Farms Solanki and Patel

The controller is composed of two voltage-
regulation loops based on proportional-integral
(PI). PCC voltage regulation loop regulates the
PCC voltage of the grid, while DC bus voltage
regulation loop maintains the DC-bus voltage
across PV inverter capacitor at a constant
voltage level. The voltage of PCC is regulated
by providing lagging or leading reactive power
during bus voltage rise and drop, respectively
by PV inverter. A rigorous research has been
done for phase-locked loop (PLL) based
control to maintain synchronization with PCC
voltage, which also reflects here.
The proposed scheme presents VAR operation
in night mode only [27]. The design of new
controller developed which provides both
voltage regulation and load compensation in
night time by utilizing entire inverter capacity
by Varma et al. which also utilized for power
factor correction during both night and day
time by remaining capacity of inverter is left
after real power production during proposed
operation (Figure 6) [28]. It is usual tendency
that power production becomes less in early
morning and late evening periods, while
during noon the generation of active power
production becomes peak of its rated value
which is solely described in Figure 7.
In the day time remaining capacity of inverter
left after real power production in terms of
Q = √S 2 − P2 is used in reactive power
generation without affecting active power
production. This control strategy is
implemented at company London Hydro’s
distribution feeder in Canada. Rated of
10 KW, solar PV system is connected in
distribution side to support the load [28].
The controller for the PV STATCOM is
designed and tested on a real time digital
simulator (RTDS) for 10 kW PV system.
During night time PV inverter provides
10 kVAR reactive power support and during
day time the active power output of the PV
solar system is 8.02 kW with corresponding
reactive power availability of 5.97 kVAr [28,
29].

Fig. 6: PV STATCOM Controller for Grid Voltage Regulation; (a) Synchronization, (b) PCC Voltage
Regulation Loop, (c) DC Bus Voltage Regulation Loop [27].

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Journal of Power Electronics & Power Systems
Volume 6, Issue 1
ISSN: 2249-863X(online), ISSN: 2321-4244(print)
Fig. 7: Active and Reactive Power Production Capability of 10 KVA PV Solar System.
PV inverters are controlled in current control
mode by using hysteresis band modulation
techniques [30]. The parameters of the PI
controllers which have been earlier estimated,
applied Ziegler-Nicholas tuning method and
then refined through simulations [31]. Average
voltage across the DC capacitor is maintained
at 400 V by use of PI controller. The amount
of the reactive current necessary for power
factor correction is determined based on load
current measurement. The major benefit of this
control strategy is that PV solar system can be
operated for 24 h in VAR mode which
increases efficient use of the plant. This is
beneficial in terms of economic aspects [27,
28].
It is also observed that line loss reduction and
voltage profile improvement with different
simulation studies helps in further
development of research work in the proposed
area. It is concluded that voltage regulation
capability is linearly proportional to the rating
of the inverter, as mentioned in various
literatures [27, 28, 32–35].
To operate the inverter in VAR mode, the DC
bus capacitor must be pre-charged. Pre-
charging the DC bus capacitance by drawing
active power from the grid, the inverter can be
operated as a rectifier by using the inverter
JoPEPS (2016) 73-85 © STM Journals 2016. All Rights Reserved
switches, anti-parallel diodes with regulating
the DC bus capacitor voltage and injecting
reactive power [36]. In another survey, a PCC
voltage controller is designed for a PV system
with consideration of both network reactance
and resistance [37]. A suitable closed-loop
controller is designed to regulate the PCC
voltage with three different compensators,
which are:
i. PCC voltage controller, with a
proportional gain;
ii. First order lag-element; and
iii. Integrator.
Another research potential has been found in
the design of centralized nonlinear auto-
adaptive controller for optimization of the
network voltage profile by managing the
reactive power supplied by solar inverters
[38]. The controller’s design is based on a real
time optimization, which involves sensitivity
theory in conjunction with the Lyapunov
function [39]. The voltage and VAR control
(VVC) approaches have considered the
reactive power injection by PV inverters. High
computational times of the typical VVC
algorithms are to be considered due to the
slow response nature of mechanical control
devices and computational burden. Traditional
VVC systems are unable to respond to
variations of irradiance in real time [38]. Paaso
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Photovoltaic Solar Farms
et al. proposed an approach based on mixed
integer non-linear programming (MINLP) for
fast-acting local control of photovoltaic
inverters with VVC [40]. A dual-layer control
is presented in which the first layer control
calculates settings of the optimal control for all
VVC devices and the second layer control
utilizes capability of PV inverters for reactive
power supply to limit the feeder voltage
changes levels within the optimization
intervals. Special control designs required for
the PV inverter to operate in VAR mode.
Another novel control of a grid connected PV
solar farm to improve transient stability limit
which results into capability of power transfer
transmission line is improved by using voltage
control and damping control strategy. For that,
each controller works separately for different
operations, as explained by Varma et al. [41,
42].
Based on this concept, PV solar system can be
operated as any type of FACTs devices.
Moawwad et al. have mentioned about use of
PV solar farm as FACTs devices in multi
feeder system. The inverters of solar farms are
reconfigured in such a way that two or more
distribution feeders are interconnected [43].
Fig. 8: Shunt I-PV System Configuration [44].
JoPEPS (2016) 73-85 © STM Journals 2016. All Rights Reserved
Solanki and Patel
While Khadkikar et al. have proved that the
system mentioned above where inverter
modules are connected back to back, is known
as interline-PV (I-PV) system. Based on the
inverter configuration it can be used as:
i. Shunt I-PV like STATCOM;
ii. Series I-PV as an inter line power flow
controller (IPFC); or
iii. Shunt-Series IPV as a unified power flow
controller (UPFC).
Typical shunt I-PV system is shown in
Figure 8. For further research work where PV
solar inverter is reconfigured in such a way
that two distribution feeders are interconnected
with each other.
For a large scale solar plant there will be
additional similar units which can works as a
shunt I-PV system. To use the system for
power factor correction, it is required to
measure the load current hence increasing the
number of sensors is required for it. The major
problem for reactive power compensation is
that it can lead to the converter being
overloaded when reactive power is required
when the system is producing rated real power
simultaneously [44].
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To use the PV solar farm for voltage
regulation and power factor correction, there is
need to measure the voltage across PCC and
load current, thereby increasing number of
sensor requirement. Another potential problem
of using PV solar farm for reactive power
compensation is that the converter being
overloaded while reactive power requirement;
when PV system is generating rated active
power. A control method for the VSC is
voltage oriented control (VOC) which is
applied by Varma et al.; is based on linear PI
controllers which is implemented in the
synchronous reference frame (SRF) aligned
with the grid voltage vector [27, 28]. In this
method, synchronization to the grid is
achieved by using a phase-locked loop (PLL)
technique. A drawback of VOC is that there is
a coupling between the active and reactive
current components and this has to be
decoupled to ensure precise control of the
current. Mulolani et al. suggested a new
control scheme based on direct power control
(DPC) [45]. The advantages of this control
Fig. 9: Block Diagram of Virtual Flux Based Inverter Control [45].
JoPEPS (2016) 73-85 © STM Journals 2016. All Rights Reserved
scheme are; not having current regulation
loops, better dynamic performance, constant
switching frequency and decoupled control of
active and reactive power. Synchronization is
achieved by using the grid virtual-flux angle
thus, eliminating the requirement of PLL. Grid
virtual flux is the integral of the grid voltage
and is used in the controller based on the
assumption that the grid is a very large AC
motor, whose voltages are induced by virtual
flux [46]. The proposed control scheme is
shown in Figure 9.
In this control scheme, grid virtual flux is
calculated from the grid voltage by the
following equations [45]:
𝛹𝛼 𝑣𝛼
[𝛹 ] = ∫ [𝑣 ] 𝑑𝑡 (1)
𝛽 𝛽
This calculated virtual flux is used to calculate
the instantaneous active power and reactive
power by:
𝑝 = 𝜔0 (𝛹𝛼 𝑖𝛽 −𝛹𝛽 𝑖𝛼 ) (2)
𝑞 = 𝜔0 (𝛹𝛼 𝑖𝛼 + 𝛹𝛽 𝑖𝛽 ) (3)
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Photovoltaic Solar Farms
This active and reactive power is controlled by
PI based power control loops. The virtual flux
vector rotates smoothly than voltage vector
because of the low-pass filters used for
integration. The virtual flux angle can be used
for synchronization. This eliminates PLL
system for grid synchronization.
The rooftop PV system is quite popular for
small scale power generation. The local
control scheme for this type PV system is
shown by Peng et al. [47]. Another control of
PV system for low voltage distribution system
is mentioned by several other researchers [48–
52]. Ko et al. suggested PV inverter control
with algorithmic method. The PV system with
direct coupled power quality controller and
polarized ramp time (PRT) current control
algorithm is used to obtain power quality
control and power factor improvement. In the
scenario where several PV systems are
connected with the grid, PV inverters can be
controlled by centralized control system which
can command the PV inverter to operate in
VAR mode when voltage control is required in
different locations [53].
By these novel controls the PV solar farm can
be utilized for reactive power compensation,
grid voltage regulation, and load current
harmonics compensations in both; during night
and daytime. PV farm can earn additional
revenues by providing these services.
CONCLUSION
Here, it is observed that rigorous research has
been done in mitigation of power quality
issues by VSC based FACTs devices and they
are still in practice. Large penetration of
renewable energy in distribution system causes
power quality issues like voltage rises, reverse
power flow etc. The modular based VSI is
essential part of PV solar farm, while FACTs
devices using VSI are reviewed. Various
implemented control schemes have been
reviewed for utilization of PV solar farm for
grid voltage regulation and reactive power
support to the nearby loads. In night time PV
solar farm will work as a STATCOM by
utilizing entire capacity of PV inverter to
regulate the voltage at PCC within utility
specified limits. Also during daytime PV solar
farm can provide reactive power support with
simultaneously generating active power.
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Solanki and Patel
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Cite this Article
Niraj Solanki, Jatinkumar Patel.
Photovoltaic Solar Farms Operating in
VAR Mode: A Review. Journal of
Power Electronics and Power Systems.
2016; 6(1): 73–85p.
Page 85