Increasing PV hosting capacity with phase rebalancing in LV networks: A network-agnostic rule-based approach
Open accessAbstract
Most residential photovoltaic (PV) systems are single-phase installations and, therefore, can increase unbalance. More unbalance exacerbates voltage rise issues on certain phases, potentially limiting the PV hosting capacity of low voltage (LV) networks. Rebalancing customers by adequately switching their phase connection can reduce unbalance and improve voltage headroom, allowing for more PV systems. However, this needs to be done quickly to cater for the normal variations in net demand. Furthermore, since most distribution companies do not have accurate, detailed three-phase LV network models, a solution independent of such models is desirable so it can be implemented. This paper proposes a fast, network-agnostic rule-based rebalancing approach that only requires knowledge of the phase groups, i.e., no network models are needed. Its feasibility is mathematically proven, and its effectiveness is benchmarked against a model-driven AC Optimal Power Flow (OPF)-based approach formulated as MINLP. Using a realistic Australian LV feeder with 29 single-phase customers, results show that the proposed approach mitigates unbalance as effectively as the OPF-based approach, in sub-seconds and without network models. Crucially, this paper demonstrates how a practical and scalable approach to reduce unbalance in two Australian LV networks—with different number of LV feeders and customers—can significantly increase the PV hosting capacity without resorting to PV curtailment.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Cites
An outer-approximation algorithm for a class of mixed-integer nonlinear programs
Durán, M. A., & Grossmann, I. E. (1986) · Mathematical Programming · doi:10.1007/bf02592064 · Cited by 1,449 · see citing works
Optimization Methods for Engineering Design
Fox, R. L., & Mote, C. D. (1972) · Journal of Dynamic Systems Measurement and Control · doi:10.1115/1.3426572 · Cited by 609 · see citing works
An open source platform for collaborating on smart grid research
Dugan, R. C., & McDermott, T. E. (2011) · 2011 IEEE Power and Energy Society General Meeting · doi:10.1109/pes.2011.6039829 · Cited by 533 · see citing works
Definitions of voltage unbalance
Pillay, P., & Manyage, M. J. (2001) · IEEE Power Engineering Review · doi:10.1109/39.920965 · Cited by 363 · see citing works
Probabilistic Impact Assessment of Low Carbon Technologies in LV Distribution Systems
Navarro-Espinosa, A., & Ochoa, L. F. (2015) · IEEE Transactions on Power Systems · doi:10.1109/tpwrs.2015.2448663 · Cited by 297 · see citing works
Self-citationReconfiguration and Load Balancing in the LV and MV Distribution Networks for Optimal Performance
Siti, M. W., Nicolae, D. V., Jimoh, A. A.-G., & Ukil, A. (2007) · IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery · doi:10.1109/tpwrd.2007.905581 · Cited by 188 · see citing works
Liu, Y., Li, J., & Wu, L. (2018) · IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid · doi:10.1109/tsg.2018.2815010 · Cited by 172 · see citing works
Shahnia, F., Wolfs, P., & Ghosh, A. (2014) · IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid · doi:10.1109/tsg.2014.2305752 · Cited by 167 · see citing works
Bo, W., Zhang, C., Dong, Z. Y., et al. (2020) · IEEE Transactions on Power Systems · doi:10.1109/tpwrs.2020.3029532 · Cited by 140 · see citing works
Phase balancing using simulated annealing
Zhu, J., Bilbro, G. L., & Chow, M. (1999) · IEEE Transactions on Power Systems · doi:10.1109/59.801943 · Cited by 123 · see citing works
Practical Method for Mitigating Three-Phase Unbalance Based on Data-Driven User Phase Identification
Liu, S., Jin, R., Qiu, H., et al. (2020) · IEEE Transactions on Power Systems · doi:10.1109/tpwrs.2020.2965770 · Cited by 122 · see citing works
Stochastic Assessment of Voltage Unbalance Due to Single-Phase-Connected Solar Power
Schwanz, D., Möller, F., Rönnberg, S. K., Meyer, J., & Bollen, M. (2016) · IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery · doi:10.1109/tpwrd.2016.2579680 · Cited by 98 · see citing works
Phase Identification With Incomplete Data
Xu, M., Li, R., & Li, F. (2016) · IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid · doi:10.1109/tsg.2016.2619264 · Cited by 82 · see citing works
Liu, B., Meng, K., Dong, Z. Y., et al. (2020) · IEEE Transactions on Power Systems · doi:10.1109/tpwrs.2020.2998144 · Cited by 63 · see citing works
Siti, W. M., Jimoh, A. A.-G., & Nicolae, D. V. (2011) · Electric Power Systems Research · doi:10.1016/j.epsr.2010.12.006 · Cited by 58 · see citing works
Wong, P. K. C., Kalam, A., & Barr, R. A. (2017) · IET Renewable Power Generation · doi:10.1049/iet-rpg.2016.0770 · Cited by 42 · see citing works
Bandara, W. G. C., Godaliyadda, R. I., Ekanayake, M. P. B., et al. (2020) · Applied Energy · doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.116022 · Cited by 33 · see citing works
Data quality challenges in existing distribution network datasets
Geth, F., Vanin, M., & Hertem, D. V. (2023) · IET conference proceedings. · doi:10.1049/icp.2023.1175 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
Kharrazi, A., Sreeram, V., & Mishra, Y. (2017) · 2017 Australasian Universities Power Engineering Conference (AUPEC) · doi:10.1109/aupec.2017.8282506 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Integrated MV-LV network modelling for DER studies
Procopiou, A. T., Jazaeri, J., Petrou, K., et al. (2020) · CIRED - Open Access Proceedings Journal · doi:10.1049/oap-cired.2021.0327 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
Distribution network model builder for OpenDSS in open source GIS software
Quesada, P., Argüello, A., Quirós‐Tortós, J., et al. (2016) · IEEE PES Transmission & Distribution Conference and Exposition - Latin America (PES T&D-LA) · doi:10.1109/tdc-la.2016.7805644 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Horta, J., Kofman, D., Menga, D., et al. (2018) · ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems (e-Energy) · doi:10.1145/3208903.3208937 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
Reno, M. J., Blakely, L., Trevizan, R. D., et al. (2022) · doi:10.2172/1855058 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
A GMM-Based Phase Group Identification for Residential Low Voltage Networks
Karunarathne, E., Simonovska, A., Ochoa, L. F., et al. (2023) · IEEE Power Engineering Society General Meeting · doi:10.1109/pesgm52003.2023.10252589 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Self-citationValidating real LV feeder models using smart meter data: a practical experience from project EDGE
Liu, M., Simonovska, A., Ochoa, L. F., et al. (2023) · IET conference proceedings. · doi:10.1049/icp.2023.1074 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Self-citationResidential PV Settings for MV-LV Networks: A Distributed Three-Phase AC OPF
Givisiez, A. G., Liu, M. Z., & Ochoa, L. F. (2021) · IEEE PowerTech Conference · doi:10.1109/powertech46648.2021.9494849 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Self-citationImpact of flexibility on low-voltage networks’ hosting capacity – Belgium experimentation
Pellerej, R., Trouillon, T., Benoit, C., et al. (2020) · CIRED - Open Access Proceedings Journal · doi:10.1049/oap-cired.2021.0308 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Residential PV Hosting Capacity, Voltage Unbalance, and Power Rebalancing: An Australian Case Study
Hou, Y., Liu, M. Z., & Ochoa, L. F. (2022) · 2022 IEEE PES Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Conference Europe (ISGT-Europe) · doi:10.1109/isgt-europe54678.2022.9960503 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Self-citation
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 2
- A. Navarro-Espinosa, L.F. Ochoa, R. Shaw, and D. Randles, Reconstruction of low voltage networks: from GIS data To power flow models. In: Proceedings of the CIRED 2015 – The 23rd International Conference on Electricity Distribution, Lyon, 2015.
- J.Duncan Glover, Mulukutla S. Sarma, and Thomas J. Overbye, Power system analysis and design. fifth ed. pp. 62–63.
Cited by
Still being checked.
- Authors
- Hou, Y., Givisiez, A. G., Liu, M. Z., & Ochoa, L. F.
- Venue
- Sustainable Energy, Grids and Networks
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2025-03
- Volume
- 41
- Pages
- 101615
- ISSN
- 2352-4677 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4405835000
- Cited by
- 7
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 3
- FWCI
- 0.72
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Sustainable Energy Grids and Networks (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Minerva Access (University of Melbourne) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Electrical and Electronic Engineering › Optimal Power Flow Distribution
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Electrical and Electronic Engineering › Smart Grid Energy Management
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Electrical and Electronic Engineering › Power Quality and Harmonics
- Keywords
- photovoltaic hosting capacity, three-phase unbalance, low-voltage distribution networks, voltage rise mitigation, phase switching
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
