In order to stimulate continued expansion of residential PV in the future, PV should be reimbursed for the benefits it provides to the grid with local distributed generation. This includes market mechanisms to compensate for the time-of-delivery (TOD) of the solar energy and the location of the injection using distribution locational marginal prices (DLMP's). The benefits of using TOD pricing is analyzed for three LMP nodes in NYISO for the real-time and the day-ahead markets for 2011. A local distribution system market is demonstrated with varying DLMP prices that depend on distribution system losses. The DLMP's change with local generation, substation price curves, time of day, line losses, and feeder load. Such a market allows the PV owner to be reimbursed appropriately for a reduction in system losses and allows PV to naturally be installed in the optimal locations due to the pricing mechanism.

High penetrations of PV on the distribution system can impact the operation of the grid and may require interconnection studies to prevent reliability problems. In order to improve the interconnection study process, the use of feeder zones and PV impact signatures are proposed to group feeders by allowable PV size as well as by their limiting factors for the interconnection. The feeder signature separates feeders into different impact regions with varying levels of PV interconnection risk, accounting for impact mitigation strategies and associated costs. This locational information improves the speed and accuracy of the interconnection screening process. The interconnection risk analysis methodology is based on the feeder and interconnection parameters such as: feeder type, feeder characteristics, and location and size of PV. PV impact signatures, hosting capacity, and feeder risk zones are demonstrated for four realistic distribution systems.

With rising adoption of solar energy, it is increasingly important for utilities to easily assess potential interconnections of photovoltaic (PV) systems. In this analysis, we show the maximum feeder voltage due to various PV interconnections and provide visualizations of the PV impact to the distribution system. We investigate the locational dependence of PV hosting capacity by examining the impact of PV system size on these voltages with regard to PV distance and resistance to the substation. We look at the effect of increasing system size on line loading and feeder violations. The magnitude of feeder load is also considered as an independent variable with repeated analyses to determine the effect on the PV impact analysis. A technique is presented to determine and visualize the maximum capacity for possible PV installations for distribution feeders.

With increasing connections of distributed rooftop PV to the distribution system, a method for simplifying the complex system to an equivalent representation of the feeder is useful to streamline the interconnection impact studies. This paper presents a method of reducing feeders to specified buses of interest while retaining equivalent electrical characteristics of the system. These buses of interest can be potential interconnection locations or buses where distribution engineers want to evaluate circuit performance. A methodology is presented showing equivalence of the reduction method with supporting equations and examples. Validation is performed for snapshot and time-series simulations with variable load and solar energy to demonstrate equivalent performance of the reduced circuit with the interconnection of PV.

This manual provides the documentation of the MATLAB toolbox of functions for using OpenDSS to simulate the impact of solar energy on the distribution system. The majority of the functions are useful for interfacing OpenDSS and MATLAB, and they are of generic use for commanding OpenDSS from MATLAB and retrieving information from simulations. A set of functions is also included for modeling PV plant output and setting up the PV plant in the OpenDSS simulation. The toolbox contains functions for modeling the OpenDSS distribution feeder on satellite images with GPS coordinates. Finally, example simulations functions are included to show potential uses of the toolbox functions. Each function in the toolbox is documented with the function use syntax, full description, function input list, function output list, example use, and example output.