Layout Design and Network Modeling of Linear PV Power Plant with MVDC Architecture

Energy Strategy 2050 promotes photovoltaic (PV) deployment to reduce fossil fuel dependence in Switzerland. However, limited available land constrains conventional solar farms, motivating the deployment of linear PV (LPV) systems along transport corridors such as highways or railways. This paper contributes to a systematic design and modeling methodology for an LPV power plant interconnected through a medium-voltage direct current (MVDC) collection network. The main methodological contribution is the development of a modified iterative modified nodal analysis (MNA) framework tailored to LPV–MVDC systems. In long-distance feeders with high line impedance, nonlinear voltage–current coupling becomes significant. These nonlinearities cannot be accurately captured by conventional MNA assuming fixed current injections. The proposed iterative approach can more accurately capture these effects compared to conventional MNA. A case study of a 5 km railway-based LPV system is investigated to present the design and modeling methodology, including layout design, network modeling, and cable sizing. The LPV power plant reaches a peak power of 3.4 MW and requires 40 DC/DC converter stations rated at 100 kW each. Cable analysis shows that 6 mm2 copper conductors satisfy voltage drop limits at a string level, while 95 mm2 conductors maintain MVDC voltage variations within 3%. These results highlight technical feasibility of MVDC-based integration for efficient long-distance renewable energy distribution.