Hur påverkar en ökad andel solceller Umeå Energis elnät? : – En utredning med fokus på spänningsvariationer och osymmetri inom landsbygds- och tätortsnät vid en- och trefasanslutning av solcellsanläggningar

Sammanfattning: A good power quality can be an important prerequisite to achieve a sustainable society. Scandinavia's electrical system is in many respects superior, and Sweden has a fossil free electricity generation at 97 % and a reliability of electricity distribution at 99.98 %. Meanwhile, the EU has an ambition to expand the electricity market in order to achieve a joint trading business across Europe. This cross-border market will result in a large proportion of fossil energy sources integrated into our electrical system, which also leads to an increased need for renewable electricity production in Sweden. One part of this development is to increase the share of renewable micro generation that is locally or regionally connected to the power grid. Distributed generation can have advantages as reduced network losses, an increased energy supply and a reduction of the fossil energy use in Europe. But it has also been shown that it gets harder for the electric companies to provide their customers with electricity of good quality when the number of installations increases. An improved power quality implicates reducing events and phenomena in the power grid that affect machinery and electrical appliances negatively. This study focuses mainly on the voltage variations and unbalances that can arise when the proportion of PV-systems increases. One of the main reasons for voltage variations is the reversed power flow that migrates "upwards" in the grid when the PV-systems produce and sell their excess to the grid. The reason for unbalance in the low voltage network is mainly loads or production with uneven distribution between the three phases. An acceptable voltage variation should not exceed ± 10 % of the reference voltage and a balanced state is crossed at 2 %. This study has carried out simulations on three of Umeå Energi´s low voltage networks with different customer configurations and network structure. The grids were assigned virtual PV-systems for 25, 50, 75 or 100 % of the customers, and the phase voltages, unbalances and overloaded lines affected by the output of 1-5 kW from the connected facilities were studied. The differences in voltage at single and three phase connection and differences between customers located near and far from the substation have been investigated. Measurements have also been made on an existing PV-installation. The simulations show that the customers who are placed far out in the network are affected most strongly by the changes, while customers close to the transformer are nearly unaffected by the changes, even with a one phase output (via L1) from all customers at 5 kW. In the simulated scenarios two networks has unbalance as a limiting factor, whereas the third network suffer unacceptable voltage rise and unbalance at nearly the same time. In the extreme scenario with an output power of 5 kW through L1 from 100 % of the costumers in the same network the lines and cables are still not overloaded, which proves that overloaded cables is a secondary problems compared to voltage variations and unbalances. The conclusion is that we do not see any serious threats to the quality of electricity at a larger share of PV-systems, as long as the installations are done in networks with a reliable dimensioning and a great awareness of the importance of three phase connections. However, the simulations have shown that there is an impact when many customers have a large production with an uneven output on the grid at the same time. One should therefore avoid scenarios where all costumers in the same network area has a PV-system with a power output in one single phase, while the loads are very low.