INTRODUCTION

India’s power grid system is massive and needs re-balancing to deal with the fluctuating/erratic nature of power generated from various energy sources flowing into the system and keep supply in sync with demand. The concern comes as India pushes for its ambitious target of 175 GW of energy from renewable energy. This has started resulting in significant grid integration challenges, particularly surrounding grid augmentation and congestion management. With the increased adoption of such diverse energy resources, there is a paradigm shift of monitoring, control and operation functions of the grid network.

Experience has proven that overall costs and performance of operating a power system can be best managed, if voltage control and reactive power control are well integrated. The flow of reactive power affects power system voltages just as the flow of real power does. Therefore, Volt-VAR control is essential for electric utilities’ ability to deliver power within appropriate voltage limits so that consumer’s equipment operates properly and to deliver power at an optimal power factor to minimize losses and PQ issues (e.g. sags, spikes, voltage fluctuations, etc.)

There are a number of benefits associated with implementing Volt-VAR control technologies. For utilities, it provides a higher level of visibility into system operating parameters and a greater degree of control to optimize energy efficient, reliable and quality electricity delivery. This type of solution can be used to optimize voltage profiles and then lower overall system voltage while staying within the specified ANSI voltage limits.