Title: Performance investigation of nine-level cascaded H-bridge inverter-based STATCOM for mitigation of various power quality problems

Authors: Abdul Hamid Bhat; V. Muneer; Arfat Firdous

Addresses: Department of Electrical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Srinagar, Kashmir, India ' Department of Electrical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Srinagar, Kashmir, India ' Department of Higher Education (Physics), Islamia College of Science and Commerce, Srinagar, Kashmir, India

Abstract: This paper deals with the design and implementation of cascaded H-bridge multilevel voltage source converter-based static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) for simultaneous active and reactive power compensation, voltage stability and damping of power oscillations. The main objective is to provide active power support and maintain the voltage stability by compensating the reactive power in the power system. In this paper, the multi pulse inverter-based STATCOM has been replaced by multilevel inverter-based STATCOM to overcome the drawbacks of the former. Cascaded H-bridge (CHB) MLI for implementation of STATCOM has been used as CHB MLI is considered the best for STATCOM applications due to its modular structure and requirement of lesser number of components. MLI-based STATCOM is used to provide simultaneous reactive power and active power compensation established by using super-capacitor. The super-capacitors are connected with each DC link capacitor of CHB MLI by using the DC-DC buck boost converter. The STATCOM is also used to provide voltage stability during the power quality problems such as voltage sag and voltage swell, it is established by injecting or absorbing reactive power. The STATCOM is also used for damping the power oscillations by controlled injection of reactive power hence enhancing transient stability. Nine-level cascaded H-bridge MLI-based STATCOM is designed for simultaneous reactive power and active power compensation, voltage stability and damping the power oscillations. Exhaustive simulations have been carried out using MATLAB/Simulink and SimPowerSystems software. The simulation results are presented to prove the effectiveness of MLI-based STATCOM for simultaneous active and reactive power compensation, voltage stability and damping of power oscillation.

Keywords: cascaded H-bridge multilevel converters; active power compensation; reactive power compensation; MLI-based STATCOM; voltage sag; voltage swell; voltage stability; power oscillation; transient stability; flexible AC transmission systems; FACTS.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIED.2017.084101

International Journal of Industrial Electronics and Drives, 2017 Vol.3 No.3, pp.132 - 145

Received: 25 Oct 2016
Accepted: 13 Dec 2016
Published online: 10 May 2017 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article