SINGLE PHASE STATCOM –ITS CONTROL

ALGORTHIM
Linju Jose
Department of Electrical &Electronics Engineering
Rajiv Gandhi Institute of technology, Kottayam
Kerala, India
E-mail:linju_j @yahoo.co.in

Abstract- In this paper, a new type of single utilized to regulate voltage, control power factor,
phase static compensator (STATCOM) for low and stabilize power flow [1].
rating used in customer side is proposed. This Most of Var compensators employ a
new STATCOM is constructed by cascading a combination of fixed or switched capacitance and
full-bridge (H Bridge) voltage-source inverter thyristor controlled reactance. Several Var
(VSI’s) to the point of common coupling (PCC.) compensator based on a voltage sourced inverter,
A so-called sinusoidal pulse width modulation known as STATCOM, have been proposed and
(SPWM) unipolar voltage switching scheme is demonstrated [2-4].
applied to control the switching devices of each In this paper the main goal is proposing a low cost
VSI. A new control strategy is adopted for single phase commercial STATCOM control
compensating the harmonics and reactive topology to act as an active filter for single phase
current required by the load. The proposed nonlinear load by using controller using PIC
STATCOM has the advantage of a fewer number microcontroller. The control technique is useful to
of VSI’s, the VSI’s being identical and extremely modify harmonics current required by the load and
fast in response to reactive power change and the compensate reactive power due to relatively
control strategy adopted shows a good response. asymmetrical unbalanced non-linear loads. The
Index Terms—Static compensator, voltage-source required data’s are achieved from dc bus voltage,
inverter, PCC, reactive power, harmonic current. grid voltage, load current and inverter current. Main
tuning parameters are obtained from conventional PI
1. Introduction controller.
The proliferation of power electronics
systems in a wide range of equipments, from home 2. CIRCUIT CONFIGURATION
VCRs and digital clocks to automated industrial
assembly lines and hospital diagnostics systems has 2.1) Statcom a simplified picture
increased the vulnerability of such equipment to STATCOM is a Voltage Source Inverter (VSI)
power quality problems. These problems include a connected in shunt to the system at the point of
variety of electrical disturbances, which may common coupling (PCC) as shown in Fig.1. The
originate in several ways and have different effects load current can be thought of as having three
on various kinds of sensitive loads. As a result of components – active, reactive and harmonic. The
this vulnerability, increasing numbers of industrial idea is to control the voltage source inverter in such
and commercial facilities are trying to protect a way as to make it deliver the reactive and
themselves by investing in more sophisticate harmonic currents demanded by the load so that the
equipment to improve power quality. Moreover, the grid has to supply only the active current. This
proliferation of nonlinear loads with large rated means that the grid current will be purely sinusoidal
power has increased the contamination level in and will be in-phase with the grid voltage on
voltages and currents waveforms, forcing to connecting the STATCOM. Ideally, it is possible to
improve the compensation characteristics required supply the reactive and harmonic current
to satisfy more stringent harmonics standards. requirement of the load with a VSI having a DC bus
Now a days the requirement for power quality capacitor and no external power source as the net
becomes more and more important to keep safety of power supplied by the STATCOM during any given
the electrical devices and consumer satisfaction. The fundamental period is zero. However, a small
growth of the non-linear loads like the devices with amount of real power will be absorbed from the grid
switching power supplies have increased current practically – to compensate for the energy losses in
harmonics, EMI problems, unnecessary reactive the system.
power and power losses. Fast switching devices like
CMOS or IGBT transistors provide implementation
of full bridge inverters to serve as a real time
parallel compensators by bidirectional energy flow
to control and compensate reactive power and
current harmonics. Static Var Compensator can be

1
An inductor is used
Fig.1 Voltage source toas link
inverter the compensator
a grid connected STATCOM voltage
to the power system. In these types of applications
PWM-VSI operates as current controlled VSI. In
Statcom the aim is to make VSI continuously track
and deliver the reactive and harmonic currents
demanded by load. This calls the use for current
controller. The VSI act as a bidirectional converter Fig.2. Proposed circuit configuration
operates as an inverter to supply the compensating
voltage to load and as a converter when charging the
capacitor. The topology adopted for the bidirectional 3. CONTROL STRATEGY FOR THE SYSTEM
converter is full bridge topology [6] and a capacitor The control strategy has mainly three sections, as
of medium rating. follows
2.2) Circuit explanation 1. Extraction of harmonic or reactive current
The Statcom should essentially consist of a single from load current
phase inverter, Dc side capacitor meant for dc 2. Generation of Unit Vectors from Grid
voltage for inverters, filter components to filter out Voltage
high frequency components of inverter output 3. Reference voltage for PWM generation
voltage, link inductor that links the inverter output 3.1)Control block of STATCOM
to the ac supply side and interface magnets(if The main control block diagram is shown in the
required)and related control blocks. figure 3.The required data’s are sensed d from dc
Figure2 shows the circuit diagram consisting of 4 bus voltage Vdc, grid voltage Vg, load current
self commutated semiconductor switches (IGBT, ic(t)and inverter current. iL(t), and corresponding
MOSFET) with anti-parallel diodes which, act as a unit vectors is generated which is in phase and 90o
full bridge converter. In this converter configuration, phase shift sine and cosine waves respectively. With
IGBT constitute the switching devices. With a dc respect to these voltage vectors the pulse is
voltage source (i.e. charged capacitor), the converter generated.
can produce balanced voltage waveforms of given Vg ic(t) iL(t) Vdc

frequency.
The reference signals are generated by sensing the
grid voltage, dc voltage, converter current and load Buffers

current. The sensed values are given as the input to Unit Vector
Generation
the controller so as to generate the reference values
for compensation.
ic(t)

iL(t)

The inverter generates a three phase voltage which

cost

sint

is synchronized with the ac supply, from the dc side LPF

+
+
+

capacitor and links this voltage to ac source. The

+

current drawn by the inverter from ac mains is LPF

Pulse
controlled to be reactive with little active component
+

- generation
+

Vdc* C/Tdc L/Ti

which is needed to supply the loses. Main condition -
+

Vg(t)
for operation of the circuit is the amount of charged
voltage on the dc link capacitors, so as to have
bidirectional current flow of current, the following Fig.3. Control block of the Statcom controller
condition should be satisfied .
3.2) Unit Vector Generation
Vc  2Vl ----------(1.1) There is no backup or battery for the system. Taking
Term Vc is capacitor voltage and Vl is effective grid voltage from the grid and using it for compensation
voltage. For this the converter acts like a Boost but grid voltage cannot be pure sinusoid, it consist
converter to transfer the stored energy to the load. of harmonics and therefore corresponding to grid
voltage the current cannot be generated. One method

2
 for PWM generation is creating truth table for grid
voltage and then triangular comparison can be done,
but the change in grid voltage affect the truth table.
More the values in truth table more accurate will be
the signals but then memory required increases
therefore a strategy known as Unit vector generation
is adopted.

Fig 5 Block Diagram for Harmonic current extraction

Sint and Cost are generated unit vectors, icfa(t) and

icfr(t) are active and reactive components
respectively.
Fig.4 Block diagram for unit vector generation
In this method the grid voltage is sensed and
corresponding voltage is generated whose 4. CONTROL ALGORITHM FOR SINGLE
magnitude is always unity. Fig.4 shows the block PHASE STATCOM
diagram for unit vector generation in which the peak This section describes about the control of the
value of the grid voltage is sensed by sensing the proposed circuit. The flow diagram given explains
zero crossing of the cosine wave (i.e. 90o phase lag the control of Statcom for compensating the
with the grid voltage.). Each low pass filter has 45o harmonic current. The controller used is PIC
phase difference which create cosine and in phase microcontroller aiming for low cost system. The
component. controller used here is PIC18FXXXX series.
3.3) Harmonic current generation: The main concept is
Let us assume that unit vectors are known and the 1. First sense the DC bus voltage and make sure it’s
direction of current from inverter to grid is taken as greater than grid voltage
positive. 2. Check if grid voltage within range, if it’s within
Let the grid voltage be range then starts charging the capacitor and enter the
Vgrid  Vg * sin st ………….. (3.1) Statcom Controller loop.
At the time of start, the condition of the controller is
Generalised Load current be
unknown there may be chance of starting the system
Iload  Io  IpSinst  IqCosst  Iharmonic …(3.2) with the previous conditions therefore the controller
Iharmonic  Iload  ( Io  IpSinst  IqCosst ) …(3.3) has to be reset first then the initialisation process
Where Io=dc component, Ip=peak of active current, takes place. After that the controller has to be started
Iq=peak of reactive current. for that first the timers are started and then unit
Figure 6 shows the diagram for generating the vector generation takes place according to the fig.4,
harmonic current that’s required by load for in user interface the protection algorithm is given
compensation. The dc component can be neglected such that over current, overvoltage, initial start-up
as it the low value and then the harmonic current is conditions are all satisfied according to the
obtained by conditions and then if flag is set then Statcom
Iharmonic  Iload  ( IpSinst  IqCosst ) …(3.4) controller is called after the conditions the ADC
process takes place and the parameters are displayed
The active part is obtained by multiplying by in
through DAC and the process continues.
phase component and the reactive part by phase lag
component.

3
 control of transmission system,”IEEE Power
Engineering Society, Summer Meeting 1994.
pp.479-6.1-8.
[5] Y.Sumi, Y.Harumoto, T.Hasegawa, M.yano,
K.Ikeda, and T.Matsuura, “New static VAR control
using force-commutated inverters,” IEEE Trans.
Power Apparent.Syst., vol.PAS-100.pp.4216-4224,
Sept.1981.
[6] C.K.Lee, S.K. Leung, S.Y.Ron Hui, Henry Shu-
Hung Chung,” Circuit-level comparison of
STATCOM Technologies,”IEEE Trans. Power
Electronics, vol.18.no.4 pp.1084-1092,July, 2003.
[7]Simone Buso, Luigi Malesani, Paolo Mattavelli,
“Comparison of current control techniques for active
filter applications”, IEEE Trans.
Ind.Elect,vol.45.,No.5,pp. 722-729 Oct.1998
[8]Bhim Singh, Kamal Al-Haddad, Ambrish
Chandra,” A review of active filters for power
quality improvement”,IEEE Trans. Ind.Elect.
,vol.46,No.5,pp.960-971Oct.1999
Fig.6. Flow diagram of proposed circuit

The PWM generation takes place according to the

sensed value. The switching frequency given is 10
kHz and therefore controller has to complete one
full cycle within 100sec.

5. CONCLUSION

The basic principle and controller design of a

STATCOM was studied in detail in the present
work. The methods so far used were depending
upon the synchronous reference frame, hysteresis
band control and many more. In this paper a new
control strategy was developed and the harmonic
current compensation was made .On focusing the
low cost factor the controller used is PIC
microcontroller. The control strategy shows good
results.

7. References:
[1]. Don A.G. Peedder , A.D.Brown, “A parallel-
connected active filter for reduction of supply
current distortion”, IEE Trans. Ind.Elect. , Vol.47,
No.5, pp 1108-1117.Oct 2000
[2]C.W.Edwards, K.E.Mattern, E.J.Stacey,
P.R.Nannery, J.Gubernick, “Advanced Static VAR
generator employing GTO thyristors,” IEE Trans.on
Power Delivery, vol.3,no.4,pp 1622-1627, Oct.1998.
[3]. S.Mori, K.Mansuno, M.Takeda and M.Seto,
“Development of a large static var generator using
self-commutated inverter for improving power
system stability”, IEEE Trans.Power Systems ,
vol.8,no.1,pp 371-377 Feb.1993
[4].C.Schauder, M.Gernhardt, E. Stacey , T.Lemak,
L.Gyungi, T.W.Cease, and A.Edris,”Development
of a +/-100MVAR Static condensor for voltage