An Improved Automatic Power Factor Controller in the RES-Integrated Distribution System

Commercial and industrial electrical customers use the capacitor bank(CB) with an automatic power factor controller (APFC) to avoid the utility's low power factor penalty. Due to space useability, economic, and environmental benefits, solar PV with smart inverter (SI) is usually installed at commercial and industrial sites. The high voltage rise scenarios may occur in the low voltage (LV) and medium voltage (MV) distribution system during high solar power generation and low power demand. In this paper, an improved APFC is proposed for the coordinated operation of SI and CB to solve the high voltage rise issue in the solar PV-based distribution system. The performance of the proposed APFC is tested by considering the load demand of a building with SI and CB, and results are compared with the conventional APFC and the SEL APFC.