Abstract

The adoption of solar photovoltaic (PV) inverters in residential networks has increased significantly because of the growing demand for clean energy and carbon footprint reduction. While these systems enable utilities to reduce dependence on conventional energy sources, several operational challenges remain unaddressed at the prosumer level, including power factor (PF) penalties, voltage fluctuations, and underutilization of inverter capacity. Most commercially available residential inverters primarily focus on real power export and do not actively manage reactive power, leading to power quality issues in low-voltage distribution networks. In addition, emerging time-of-day (ToD) tariff structures are not effectively utilized by existing control strategies. In this work, an optimization-based supervisory control strategy is proposed for residential PV inverters. The problem is formulated as a convex quadratic programming (CQP) problem, where real and reactive power are optimally coordinated under inverter kilovolt-ampere constraints. The objective is to integrate ToD-based economic optimization with power factor regulation. Unlike conventional approaches that enforce strict PF constraints, the proposed method incorporates PF through a quadratic penalty on the deviation from the desired active–reactive power relationship, enabling a controlled trade-off between economic benefit and grid-support requirements. Depending on operating conditions, the controller dynamically prioritizes real power export or reactive power support while maintaining PF close to the desired threshold. Experimental validation is carried out on a 6 kVA hardware prototype. The results demonstrate improved inverter utilization, enhanced power factor performance, and significant cost reduction under the considered operating scenario. These findings highlight the potential of coordinated real and reactive power management for improving both economic and grid performance in residential PV systems.

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