An Adaptive Fairness-Based PV Curtailment Strategy: Simulation and Experimental Validation

The rapid growth of PV generation in the distribution grid has necessitated PV curtailment to prevent overvoltage violations, and this has raised fairness issues as some are curtailed disproportionately to others. This paper proposes an adaptive PV curtailment scheme that balances fairness with energy sales using a Curtailment Index (CI) employed to reallocate curtailed energy between PV systems. The CI-based approach dynamically adapts each inverter’s output in real time to provide voltage compliance while ensuring that no individual PV system experiences an overburden of curtailment. The method is evaluated through MATLAB simulations on a three-PV test distribution network and validated experimentally on the PAGLIA ORBA solar microgrid, where its performance is compared to equal-curtailment and unfair strategies. The findings indicate that the adaptive method helps integrate high PV penetration more equitably and efficiently, ensuring stable grid operation while minimizing financial losses for PV owners.