• The concept and calculation method of power moments are proposed. • The static feasible region of PV hosting capacity is analytically expressed using power moments. • A time series feasible region is characterized based on the static feasible region. • The power moment method offers advantages in computational efficiency. The feasible region is an essential tool for evaluating the distributed photovoltaic (PV) hosting capacity. However, traditional feasible region solving methods, such as the convex envelope method and point-by-point method, are computationally complex and time-consuming. To address these issues, this paper proposes a power moment-based method for solving the feasible region of distributed PV hosting capacity. First, to characterize the combined effects of PV installation location and capacity on voltage and current in the distribution network, the concept of power moments is introduced, and the mathematical expression of power moments is proposed. Then, voltage deviation and line current constraints are incorporated, and an analytical model of the static feasible region for PV hosting capacity is proposed based on power moments. This is followed by a characterization method for the time series feasible region (TSFR) that accounts for the temporal characteristics of PV output. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed model and method is validated using the IEEE 33-bus system and a practical 106-bus distribution system in Northern China. The results demonstrate that, as the dimension of the feasible region and the number of system buses increase, the computational time of the proposed power moment method scales linearly, enabling fast and accurate computation of the high-dimensional TSFR of distributed PV hosting capacity in large-scale systems. Moreover, the TSFR is primarily governed by the voltage and current feasible regions at the time instant when the difference between PV output and load reaches its maximum.
Luo et al. (Wed,) studied this question.