Residential Battery Controller For Solar PV Impact Mitigation: A Practical and Customer-friendly Approach

Abstract

The rapid adoption of residential solar photovoltaic (PV) systems combined with the falling prices of residential battery energy storage (BES) systems is paving the way for a future in which customers could locally supply most of their energy needs. However, as off-the-shelf (OTS) residential BES systems operate for the sole benefit of the customer, there are no guarantees that they will be able to charge during periods of peak solar generation; thus being unable to mitigate overvoltage and asset congestion issues resulting from reverse power flows. This work proposes a practical adaptive decentralized (AD) controller that, throughout the day, constantly adapts the charging and discharging power rate of the BES system so that reverse power flows are significantly reduced whilst still reducing customer grid imports. Its performance is assessed on a real Australian medium voltage feeder with realistically modelled low voltage networks and smart meter data. Results highlight that the proposed AD controller overcomes the limitations of the OTS by mitigating technical issues while still bringing similar reductions in electricity imports.