Can NREL estimate active power reserve in curtailed PV plants?

The NREL-developed method for active power reserve estimation in curtailed PV plants has been successfully implemented in several utility-scale PV projects worldwide. One such example is the Luz del Norte 141-MW PV power plant owned by First Solar in Chile’s Atacama region .

Are AC-coupled PV-battery energy storage systems colocated?

In this work, we focused on developing controls and conducting demonstrations for AC-coupled PV-battery energy storage systems (BESS) in which PV and BESS are colocated and share a point of common coupling (PCC).

What are the reactive power requirements for PV power plants?

In conventional power plants with synchronous generators, the reactive power range is normally defined as dynamic, so synchronous generators must continuously adjust their reactive power production or absorption within a power factor range of ±0.95. For PV power plants, the reactive power requirements are not well defined.

Does NREL control the inverters of the maxgen PV plant?

The MaxGen (former ly SunEdison) PV plant is a commercial 1-MW plant that operates under a PPA with Xcel Energy. NREL does not have control over the inverters of this plant.

Why is accurate estimation important for integrated PV-plus-storage operation?

The accurate estimation of available power in PV plants that happened to be curtailed for any reason is also important for integrated PV-plus-storage operation so that the plant controller can have precise information on the available spinning reserve from PV and can dispatch energy storage accordingly.

Can a PV plant follow active and reactive power set points?

Several important observations from Figure 27 are: • The PV plant consisting of string inverters from different vendors is capable of following both the active and reactive power set points with a high level of precision. • The plant can follow the reactive power set points in both the kVAR injection and absorption modes.