Latest Technical Specifications and Testing Procedures for Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Power Station in China

In recent years, Chinese government has published many subsidy policies for photovoltaic power, such as "BIPV" "Golden Sun Demonstration Project¡" and "Bidding for Concession". Meanwhile, several local governments also published their own subsidy policies to increase the investment subsidies or to publish electricity price in tariff for photovoltaic power projects. The publishing of these policies have been promoting the rapid growth in total amount of installed photovoltaic power. Furthermore, PV power permeability has reached an upper value in some region. The instability, random city, and upper permeability acting on PV power, bring serious influence to safe and stable operation of the grid in China. Therefore, State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) has published two enterprise standards, Q/GDW 617-2011 "Technical specifications for photovoltaic power station connected to the grid" and Q/GDW 618-2011 "Testing procedures for photovoltaic power station connected to the grid", which specifies the prospective technical parameters at different voltage rating, capacity and grid-connected types, and required testing items and methods. Focused on grid connected PV power station, the standards specifies the requirement of testing parameters, including active power control, voltage/reactive power regulation, response to abnormal voltage/frequency, power quality, low voltage ride through (LVRT), anti-islanding protection, back-feed protection, reconnection, lightening & ear thing protection, electromagnetic compatibility, surge immunity, electric energy metering, and communication & signal. In this article, it will describe those two standards in details, and analyse specific parameter and established basis required by each technical clause.