Ph.D student Vijay Kumar K presented his paper entitled “Assessing the Impact of Smart Inverters on Voltage Regulator Actuations using OpenDSS and MATLAB” at the 10th IEEE Texas Power and Energy Conference (TPEC) held on February 8-10, 2026 in College Station, Tx USA.
This paper investigates the potential for adverse interactions between smart photovoltaic (PV) inverters and conventional voltage regulators in electric distribution systems. Multiple operating scenarios are developed and analyzed using a simulation-based methodology designed to quantify the impact of smart inverter operation on voltage regulator performance. The IEEE 123-bus test feeder, configured with seven voltage regulators, is modeled in OpenDSS-G and integrated with three PV inverters. Six scenarios are examined, ranging from a baseline case with no PV to configurations including mixed smart and conventional inverters and a fully smart-inverter deployment. Time-series simulations are conducted over a 24-hour period with 10-minute resolution, and the resulting data are exported for post-processing and analysis. The findings provide insight into future strategies for coordinated inverter–regulator control.
