Analysis of Fairness-promoting Optimization Schemes of Photovoltaic Curtailments for Voltage Regulation in Power Distribution Networks

Active power curtailment of photovoltaic (PV) generation is commonly exercised to mitigate over-voltage issues in power distribution networks. However, fairness concerns arise as certain PV plants may experience more significant curtailments than others depending on their locations within the network. Existing literature tackles this issue through fairness-promoting/aware optimization schemes. These schemes can be broadly categorized into two types. The first type maximizes an additional fairness objective along with the main objective of minimizing curtailment. The second approach employs feedback-based weights to promote fairness in the curtailment minimization objective for each PV plant. These weights are determined based on feedback from prior curtailment actions, ensuring a fair distribution of curtailment across the plants. This work combines these two schemes and provides extensive comparisons and analyses. We compare the performance in terms of fairness and net curtailments for several benchmark test networks.