Quantification, challenges and outlook of PV integration in the power system: a review by the European PV Technology Platform

Integration in the power system has become a limiting factor to the further development of photovoltaics. Proper quantification is needed to evaluate both issues and solutions; the share of annual electricity demand is widely used but we found that some of the metrics which are related to power rather than energy better reflect the impact on networks. Barriers to wider deployment of PV into power grids can be split between local technical issues (voltage levels, harmonics distortion, reverse power flows and transformer loading) and system-wide issues (intermittency, reduction of system resilience). Many of the technical solutions to these issues rely on the inverters as actuators (e.g., for control of active and reactive power) or as interfaces (e.g., for local storage). This role requires further technical standardisation and needs to be taken into account in the planning of power networks. Forecasting, storage, and combination with other renewable sources are interdependent solutions to solve the intermittency issue. Finally, we found that PV is also an opportunity to reduce some investment required to upgrade existing power networks. Through integration with micro-grids and hybrid generators, it can form the basis of novel power systems.