Shigeo Konishi
Kenji Baba
Mitsuru Daiguji
1. Introduction
In each field of power system, industry, and
electric railway, static var compensators (SVCs), taking full advantage of power electronics technology,
have lately been applied widely for the suppression of
voltage fluctuation, the stabilization of power system,
the suppression of voltage flicker, and the regulation of
voltage phase in electrical supply systems.
This paper describes the latest technical trends of
SVCs as well as converter technology and application
examples.
Voltage
Compared to the external-commutated SVCs, selfcommutated SVCs have the better ability to maintain
voltage in the voltage drop region since they have
constant current characteristic.
Furthermore, self-commutated SVCs can output
not only leading/lagging-phase reactive power but also
negative-phase-sequence power by controlling the amplitude and phase of inverter voltage as against those
of line voltage as shown in Fig. 2, and can compensate
higher harmonics as well.
Against the background of the development of
large capacity GTOs, self-commutated SVCs have been
realized and have been utilized as SVC for electric
railway and flicker compensator.
However, GTOs require anode reactors and an
individual snubber for each device due to the restriction of capability for di/dt and dV/dt as shown in Fig. 3.
In addition, the snubber power regenerating circuit is
necessary to avoid the deterioration of efficiency since
the reactors and the snubber cause the large amount of
loss. Therefore, the configuration of inverter circuit
applying GTOs becomes complicated. In contrast, by
applying the flat-packaged IGBT which is the large
capacity voltage-driven switched valve device developed by Fuji Electric, peripheral circuits can be vastly
simplified, and the number of the circuit component
and the size of inverter circuit can be reduced by more
than 50 %.
Practical use of SVCs, which apply flat-packaged
IGBT and are of compact size, high efficiency, high
reliability and low price, encourages utilization of high
performance self-commutated SVCs in power systems.
Line voltage
Vs
I
Ia
Leading
Var Compensators
Reactive
power
Lagging
Vic
TCR
Vsb
Vsc
XIa
Ic Vib
Negative-phase-sequence
power output operation
XIa
Via
Vsa
Ia
Ic
Vi
Vsc
XIb
Inverter voltage XIc
Vic Ib
Vsb
Vib XI
b
37
GDU
GDU
GDU
Clamp
snubber
GDU
FET
Driving
logic
circuit
G
FET
Protecting
detection
circuit
Device
voltage
detection
15 V
Device voltage
detection, Power
supply monitoring
Clamp
snubber
Regenerating unit
GTO inverter
Feedback
signal
Individual
snubber
+15 V
Flat-packaged
IGBT
Regenerating unit
Optical
signals
Anode
reactor
Flat-packaged
IGBT inverter
Light on
Ignition/extinguish Light
off
command
3. Converter Technology
This Chapter describes the latest technical trend
and essential technology about converters for the var
compansators, taking IGBT type converters which are
of the latest technical trend as example.
Feedback signal
<Abnormal state>
Ignition/extinguish Light
off
command
Light on
Detection
of abnormality
Feedback signal
38
+
+
+
+
2nd stack
+
+
+
+
(kA)
2.4
Resonance current
0.8
0.8
2.4
4.0
16.67
Var Compensators
20.00
23.33
26.67
Time (ms)
(b) Analysis example
30.00
33.33
39
Voltage
Current
Line voltage
control
Current
Time(s)
Time(s)
(a) Waveform of exciting voltage, current and flux
Inverter excitation
Load
current due to the fact that the core does not have a
gap.
The cooling design is optimized by considering this
larger loss, and by positioning the cooling ducts in
locations where the construction causes heat to become
concentrated.
3.4 Control technology
40
SVC
Positive
phase
Pd
Pq
Negative
phase
Nd
Nq
PWM
0.01
Current control
Coordinate
reverse
2 / 3
conversion
0.01 0.01
Selected
computation of
component to be
compensated
Digital filter
Flux
0.01
Coordinate 3 / 2
conversion
dq
Flux
reactive power fluctuation disturbances (voltage fluctuations) in the connected power system due to the
frequent load fluctuations of large capacity equipment
that has been put into operation. Typical examples of
such loads are arc furnaces for steel manufacturinguse, rolling mills and welding machines.
A disturbance that causes lights or TV displays to
flicker due to voltage fluctuation is called flicker
disturbance and is distinguished from normal voltage
fluctuation. Among electric facilities for industrial use,
arc furnaces for steel manufacturing have a capacity
level, fluctuation frequency of reactive power and three
phase unbalance condition that make them prone to
cause flicker, and therefore most of the furnaces
provide some counter plans.
Conventionally, external-commuted equipment
equipped with thyristors were used widely as flicker
compensators. However, self-commutated equipment
using switched valve devices such as GTOs and IGBTs
has become the majority now supported by the rapid
progress of device and application technology in the
field of power electronics.
An overview and some application examples of
external-commuted and self-commutated equipment
are described below.
4.1.1 External-commutated flicker compensators
180 MVA
220 kV/33 kV
XS
QS
QF
QSFC
Load
Arc furnace
152 MVA
QL
Reactor
Ladle
furnace
24 MVA
TCR
80 MVA
#2 to #5
Filter
140 MVA
QC
Connecting
transformer
Thrystor
Capacitor
Inverter
Flicker compensator (SFC)
Capacity
80 MVA
Voltage
33 kV/1,420 V
Impedance
50 %
Device
Device configuration
10P6A2G
Fig.12 Electric power system equipped with GTO flicker compensator and specifications thereof
Specifications of flicker compensator
Output
154 kV/
20 kV
154 kV/22 kV
Inverter
154 kV/33 kV
Capacity
Voltage
Current
Configuration
Voltage
Current
DC voltage
Switching
Device
Cooling
13 MVA
20 kV
376 A
Single-phase inverter
three phase six stages
885 V
816 A
1,900 V
540 Hz
Reverse conducting
GTO thyristor (4.5 kV, 3 kA)
Pure water cooling system
Filter
2 MVA
13 MVA
SFC
Var Compensators
13 MVA
SFC
#2 to #5
Filter
85 MVA
TCR
85 MVA
No.3
Arc
furnace
75 MVA
#2 to #5
TCR
Filter 30 MVA
30 MVA
No.1
Arc
furnace
30 MVA
No.2
Arc
furnace
30 MVA
41
sators
Figure 12 shows an example of a system equipped
with the self-commutated flicker compensator using
GTO devices.
This system is composed of a 154 kV to 20 kV stepdown transformer, two sets of 13 MVA compensators
connected with 20 kV line, and associated 2 MVA high
frequency filters.
In this compensator, a three-phase single multiconnected inverter is composed of three sets of singlephase inverters equipped with a large capacity reverseconducting GTO (4.5 kV, 3 kA), and six sets of these
three-phase inverters are series-multi-connected via a
transformer. Phase shift winding is not provided in
this multiple transformer, and multiplexing is realized
by phase shifting of the pulse width modulated triangle-wave carrier signal.
High pass filters absorb high-order upper harmonics caused by inverter switching and are provided to
prevent burnout of the 20 kV line cable and/or absorbers. The effect of this equipment in reducing flicker is
shown in Fig. 13. The target of a greater than 50 %
V 10 (%)
80
Before improvement
After improvement
60
40
20
0
0
10
20
30
Time (min)
40
50
60
Fig.14 Electric power system equipped with flat-packaged IGBT flicker compensator and specifications thereof
Specifications of flicker compensator
Output
Inverter
55/55/25 MVA
110/22/6.4 kV
Capacity
Voltage
Current
Configuration
Voltage
Current
DC voltage
Switching
Device
Cooling
TCR
15 MVA
42
#2 to #4
Filter
21.5 MVA
#3, #5
Filter
27 MVA
12 MVA
22 kV
315 A
Single-phase inverter
three phase four stage
735 V
1,360 A
1,400 V
720 Hz
Flat-packaged IGBT
(2.5 kV, 1.8 kA)
Pure water cooling system
TCR
25 MVA
Arc furnace
55 MVA
Self-feeding
gate drive
circuit
GDU
RC
snubber
GDU
DC
capacitor
GDU
AC
Scott
connection
transformer
M seat
GDU
GDU
Clamp
snubber
GDU
N
T seat
Shinkansen
Specification
Line voltage
System capacity
Inverter type
Inverter
Inverter capacity
Devices
Cooling method
Control method
Multiple
transformer
Step-down
transformer
High harmonics
filter
Var Compensators
Specification
DC voltage
3,600 V 10 %
Output voltage
1,950 V
Applied devices
Configuration of devices
3S1P2A
Feeding method
for gate drive circuit
Self-feeding
Cooling method
43
5. Conclusion
SVCs are expected to play a much more important
44
All brand names and product names in this journal might be trademarks
or registered trademarks of their respective companies.