Reactive Power and Unbalance Compensation with DSTATCOM

Tong XiangQian, Xi Keqing, Shen Ming, Ma Xianhong

School of Automation & Information Engineering, Xi'an University of Technology, Xi'an 710048, China
Abstract Load unbalance is a general phenomenon in low-voltage three-phase distribution system. As the negative sequence voltage will cause abnormal operation of electric equipments and decrease the power quality, a low-voltage distribution static synchronous compensator (DSTATCOM) is proposed to compensate both the reactive power and load unbalance caused by asymmetric loads in a threephase power system, and an asymmetric control on method based symmetrical component transformation and d-q transformation for the DSTATCOM is presented. An experiment system of a low-voltage DSTATCOM was developed, and the generation method of SPWM pulse was implemented. The results of experiments, which conducted with balanced load and unbalanced load, verify the validity of compensation algorithm, and also show that the SPWM-based DSTATCOM can compensate reactive power and load unbalance synchronously. Keywords DSTATCOM, reactive power, unbalanced load. I. INTRODUCTION Many nonlinear electrical loads will cause various power quality problems, such as violent voltage fluctuation, power loss, harmonic current, abnormal operation of electric equipments and so on. A distribution static synchronous compensator (DSTATCOM) is one of the equipments to compensate the reactive power dynamically, and can be used to improve power quality. Compared with the saturated reactor and static var compensator based on thyristor phase control, DSTATCOM has an advanced performance in distribution system [1,2]. DSTATCOM is often developed to compensate reactive power of three-phase symmetry loads. But the three-phase loads in the low-voltage system are usually unbalanced; therefore we expected that the compensator could provide different reactive power for different phase. This paper presents a novel generating method of the PWM pulses for SPWM-VSI-based DSTATCOM. Modifying the SPWM pulse width, which derived from the positive sequence load current, with the negative sequence load current, forms the final PWM pulse width. The experiment result verifies the feasibility of the proposed method.
II. PRINCIPLE OF DSTATCOM

provided that the three-phase supply voltage is balanced, the phase relationship of the supply voltage u5, inverted voltage ug, inductor voltage UL and compensation current i is shown in Fig.2 [3]. In the ideal condition that the STATCOM has no electric energy loss, if the voltage ug inverted by the voltage source inverter (VSI) is synchronous with the supply voltage u5, the current ig will purely be reactive referenced to the supply voltage [1]. But in fact, the DSTATCOM necessarily consume a bit of electric energy and this requires the existing of phase difference, named control angle 6, between the supply voltage and inverted voltage from VSI.

Fig. 1 Main circuit of SPWM-VSI-based DSTATCOM

(a) 6>0: P>O and Q>O

(b) 6>0: P>O and Q<O

(c) 6<0: P<O and Q<O

i
v

US~~U UU
UL

Considering a DSTATCOM used in a three-phase three-wire distribution system, as shown in Fig. 1, and
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(d) 6<0: P<O and Q>O Fig.2 Operation status of DSTATCOM

Note that the control angle 3 is positive if the inverted voltage lags the supply voltage, and the reactive power Q is positive if the STATCOM absorbs reactive power. In SPWM control mode for the VSI, the dc voltage UdC, as shown in the following equation, determines the inverted voltage.
ug
2

As the supply voltage and inverted voltage are symmetric sinusoidal, the d-q transformation of supply voltage and inverted voltage can be written as
LUsd

J3 -us

0 gd

V6 i Ud C S. 5
of dc

(6)

/Udcsin(wt+3)

(1)

according to the principle of power conservation, the dc

circuit equation is given by

Let C denotes the

capacitance

capacitor,

Where, X is the PWM modulation index and 0) is the system frequency. By regulating the control angle, the active power exchanged between power supply and the DSTATCOM is adjusted and hence increase or decrease the capacitor voltage in the dc side, consequently the reactive power exchanged between power supply and DSTATCOM will be regulated. Equation (1) also indicates that the PWM modulation index directly adjusts the amplitude of the inverted voltage and hence changes the reactive power. In order to represent the energy loss, an equivalent resistance (R) in series with the inductor (L) is introduced. As the energy loss is very small, the equivalent resistance can be negligible compared with the reactance of the inductor. Therefore, the active and reactive power of DSTATCOM can be expressed as [3] p UsUg sinS5 (2) wOL
Us

(id cos + iq sin S) (7) dt 4Cq Equations (5)-(7) describe the dynamic characteristic of the SPWM-VSI-based DSTATCOM. In order to obtain a desired reactive power or reactive current, a digital control system based on DSP controller and double-variable control strategy is employed. First, synchronously samples the three-phase currents (ia, ib, ie) and supply voltages (usa, U5b, u5,), detect the dc voltage UdC, and calculates the reactive component of current, then according the errors of actual reactive current and dc voltage with their references to regulate the control angle a and modulation index X, as shown in Fig.4. Adjusting the control angle 3 can regulate the dc voltage, and adjusting the SPWM modulation index X can directly regulate the magnitude and polarity of reactive power.

dUdc = 6

(Ug coS u Us)

-

wOL

(3)

III. CONTROL STRATEGY OF DSTATCOM From Fig. 1 and considering the equivalent resistance mentioned above, the ac circuit equation is given by

us]
usc

Usa

'a]

d + ug] [La]

da

(4)
Fig.3 Double-variable control strategy of DSTATCOM There is no doubt that only adjusting a can control the reactive power generated by DSTATCOM, but more perfect performance is presented in experiments by double-variable control strategy shown in Fig.4. To get better dynamic performance, the dc voltage is altered in two levels [4], the higher level for the capacitive power, and the lower level for the inductive power.
IV. ADJUSTMENT OF PWM PULSE WIDTH FOR UNBALANCED LOAD COMPENSATION
In the condition of unbalanced loads, in order to compensate the unbalanced reactive current of loads with DSTATCOM and have the supply reactive current of each phase be zero, the DSTATCOM must generated three different reactive currents owning the same magnitude and inverse polarity with the three phase load currents. For the STATCOM intended to compensate unbalanced 1182

ic

ic

ugc

Where, usa, Usb, and usc are supply voltages, ia, ib, and ic are DSTATCOM currents, uga, Ugb, and ugc are inverted voltage of three-phase respectively. R denotes the resistance, and L denotes the inductance. Applying the d-q transformation to (4)

Fla 1 uga] gd Ugb~ CUsb IC*b [C] [ugqj =[ gcj uq] =iq] [CiLq]
Ud

Tsa]

We can get the mathematic model of DSTATCOM

d

Fid
L-

d R/L -

dtLiq
Where

- R/L]-iqj

Fidi

sFd

L-usq -ugq]

Ugd

(5)

IC]

2F

sin(ct) sin(ct - 2;T/3) sin(ct - 4;T/3) 1 3 Lcos(ct) cos(ct - 2;T/3) cos(ct - 4;T/3)j

load, how to calculate the PWM pulse width and generate the pulse is the most important issue. As we know, the calculation of SPWM pulse width for a three-phase symmetric system is well known and already widely used. So we expect that the pulse width for the asymmetric system can be calculated with the help of existing method for the symmetric system. Firstly we decompose the unbalanced three-phase currents into two three-phase symmetric components, named positive sequence component and negative sequence component, with the symmetrical component transformation; secondly we calculate the SPWM pulse width TI and T2 for the positive sequence component and negative sequence component respectively with the known method; finally we obtain the pulse width T3 for the original asymmetric current by modifying the width TI with T2. T3 = T1 + AT = T1 + (T2 - T/2) (8) Where, T denotes the period of the carrying triangle wave. Fig.4 is the illustration of pulse width modification as in equation (8). For the special condition that the system is symmetrical, the amplitude of negative sequence component is zero, i.e., T2=T/2, and therefore T3=Ti. Please note that AT will be negative if the instantaneous value of the negative sequence component at this time is negative.
At

compensation. Fig.6a shows the supply currents before the DSTATCOM operation, the currents are also the load currents. Obviously the currents of phase B and phase C is much smaller than that of phase A. After the operation of DSTATCOM, as show in Fig.6b, the three-phase supply currents, which composed of load current and compensation current, are almost symmetric. So we can conclude that the DSTATCOM controller based on symmetrical component transformation can compensate the reactive power and unbalance synchronously.
'I

(a) Transition from inductive state to capacitive state

Fig.4 Adjustment of the PWM pulse width

V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULT

unbalance. Fig.5 shows the compensation current of DSTATCOM in steady state and transition form inductive state to capacitive state (Fig.5a) or form inductive state to capacitive state (Fig.5b). Fig.5 indicates that the transition takes less than 40ms from inductive steady state to capacitive steady state or vice versa. Fig.6 shows the three-phase supply currents before and after the operation of DSTATCOM for asymmetric load

A low-voltage experimental system of DSTATCOM with a DSP-based controller was developed. Two experiments were conducted to verify the feasibility of double-variable control strategy and PWM pulse width adjustment. One experiment was conducted at the case of symmetric load only for the reactive power compensation, and the other was conducted at the case of asymmetric load intended to compensate both reactive power and

(b) Transition from capacitive state to inductive state

Fig.5 Compensation current for symmetric load

(a) Three phase supply currents before DSTATCOM operation

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.,.

..

..

.".

....

the normal SPWM pulse generation method in DSTATCOM to compensate asymmetric load, a novel method based on symmetrical component transformation ispooed. Adjusting the SPWM pulse width of positive sequence component with the negative sequence component forms the pulse width for asymmetric compensation. An experiment system based on DSP controller and double-variable control strategy is developed, and the results show that the DSTATCOM is able to compensate both reactive power and unbalance
use

~~~~~~~~~To

VI. CONCLUSION

synchronously.

(b) Three phase supply currents after DSTATCOM operation

A

REFERENCES [1] JIANG Qirong, XIE Xiaorong, and CHEN Jianye, "Po-wer System Shunt Compensation- Structure, Principle, Control and -aApplications," Beijing: China Machine Press, 2004. [2] L.T.Moran, P.D.Ziogas, and G.Joos, "Analysis and Design of a

[3]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~"Experimental

[4]
C

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~DSP-controlled

Trans. On Industry Applications, vol.25, no.4, pp.598-608, 1989. [2] TONG Xiangqian, WANG Chao, and ZHONG Yanru, Research on SPWMI-VSJ-based DSTATCOAJVL" Advanced Technology of Electrical Engineering and Energy, vol.23, no.3, pp.3 1-34, 2004. L. Xu, V.G.Agelidis, and E.Acha, "Development considerations of IEE Pro. Electric PWMI VSC-based Power Applications, vol. 148, no. 5, pp.449-455, 2001.

STATCOAMI"

(c) Transition of supply currents after DSTATCOM start Fig.6 Supply currents before and after the operation of DSTATCOM for asymmetric load compensation

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