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International Journal of Electrical, Electronics

and Computer Engineering 2(1): 59-64(2013)

ISSN No. (Online) : 2277-2626

A Review on the Control Strategies used for DSTATCOM and DVR

Reena Asati and Dr. N.R. Kulkarni
Department of Electrical Engineering,
P.E.S. Modern College of Engineering, Pune, (MS)
(Received 15 February, 2013 Accepted 10 March, 2013)
ABSTRACT: Presently many types of FACT controllers are available for the application of power system
stability. This paper is only focusing on Distribution Static Compensator (D-STATCOM) and Dynamic
Voltage Restorer (DVR) and addressing the different controlling techniques available for the proper
controlling of both devices. The paper provides the detail description and configuration of the recently
introduced controlling methods for both the devices with their advantages, limitations applicable conditions.
Keywords: Power System Stability (PSS), Distribution Static Compensator (DSTATCOM), Dynamic Voltage
Restorer (DVR).
I. INTRODUCTION
Increased application of the sophisticated electronic
devices like microcontrollers, FPGA, CPLD in
industrial and home requires a smooth operational
power supply and to maintain such supply the power
company uses regulating equipments. Although all type
of power quality problems are important but voltage
dips occur more often and cause severe problems and
economical losses. Voltage dips mainly have their
origin in the higher voltage levels. Faults due to
lightning, is one of the most common causes to voltage
dips on overhead lines. Nowadays, various types of
Custom Power Devices (CPD) such as D-STATCOM,
Dynamic Voltage Restorer (DVR) and Static Transfer
Switch (STS) are introduced and used as a mitigation
device to improve power quality. The D-STATCOM
and DVR are most effective Voltage Source Converter
(VSC) based devices among other types of CPDs which
are used for power quality improvement [6]. The
working of both D-STATCOM and DVR are based on
VSC. A DVR injects a voltage in series with the system
voltage and a D-STATCOM injects a current into the
system to correct the voltage sag, swell and
interruption. The performance of these systems not only
described by their topologies and components but
greatly depends upon control algorithms they used and
the modification of these algorithms can give us a cost
effective improvement on the performance of the
device. This paper presents operational details of these

devices with brief review of some recent algorithms for

enhancement and specialized operations of these
devices.
II. VOLTAGE SOURCE CONVERTER (VSC)
Because both the devices based on VSC this section
presents a brief explanation of this device.

Fig. 1. The topology of a conventional two level VCS

using IGBT switches.
Voltage Sourced Converters (VSCs) are six-pulse
converters consisting of six power semiconductor
switching devices and anti-parallel diodes. From a
direct current (DC) voltage source, the VSC
generates a set of controllable three-phase output
voltages at the frequency of the system voltage.
Pulse width modulation is used to control the firing of
the semiconductor switching devices, generating an
average sine wave. Pulse width modulation also
helps mitigate the amount of harmonics [15].

Asati and Kulkarni

III. DISTRIBUTION STATIC COMPENSATOR
(D-STATCOM)
When the STATCOM is applied in distribution system
is called DSTACOM (Distribution-STACOM) and its
configuration is the same, or with small modifications,
oriented to a possible future amplification of its
possibilities in the distribution network at low and
medium voltage, implementing the function so that we
can describe as flicker damping, harmonic filtering and
long and short interruption compensation.

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more flexible option than the fundamental frequency

switching methods favored in FACTS applications.
Besides, high switching frequencies can be used to
improve on the efficiency of the converter, without
incurring significant switching losses. The simulations
carried out showed that the D-STATCOM provide
excellent voltage regulation capabilities.
(ii) Adaptive Control Strategy for DSTATCOM: A
novel adaptive control strategy for the DSTATCOM
based on Artificial Immune System (AIS) is presented
by Mitra and Venayagamoorthy [3]. In their proposed
system optimal parameters of the controller are
obtained first using the particle swarm optimization
algorithm. This provides a sort of innate immunity
(robustness) to common system disturbances. For
unknown and random system disturbances, the
controller parameters are modified online, thus
providing adaptive immunity to the control system.

Fig. 2. Basic D-STATCOM Diagram.

Generally, the D-STATCOM configuration consists of
a typical 12 pulse inverter arrangement, a dc energy
storage device; a coupling transformer connected in
shunt with ac system, and associated control circuits, as
shown in Figure 2. The voltage source inverter converts
an input dc voltage into a three phase output voltage at
fundamental frequency. These voltages are in phase and
coupled with the ac system through the reactance of the
coupling transformer [7].
A. The Control Methods for the D-STATCOM
This section presents some recent approaches for
controlling of D-STATCOM
(i) PWM based Control with only Voltage
Measurement: Hojat Hatami et al [2] presented a new
PWM based control scheme has been proposed that
only requires voltage measurements and no reactive
power measurements are required. The proposed
control system only measures the rms voltage at the
load point i.e., no reactive power measurements are
required. The VSC switching strategy is based on a
sinusoidal PWM technique which offers simplicity and
good response. Because distribution network is a
relatively low-power application, PWM methods offer a

Fig. 3. Control structure for the DSTATCOM [3].

The control strategy employed in [3] contains a GTO
based square wave voltage source converter (VSC) is
used to generate the alternating voltage from the DC
bus. In this type of inverters, the fundamental
component of the inverter output voltage is proportional
to the DC bus voltage. So, the control objective is to
regulate VDC as per requirement. Also, the phase angle
should be maintained so that the AC generated voltage
is in phase with the bus voltage. The schematic diagram
of the control circuit is shown in Fig. 3.
(iii) Flexible DSTATCOM operation in voltage or
current control mode: Ledwich and Ghosh [4]
discussed the topology and control of a distribution
static compensator (DSTATCOM) that can be
operated flexibly in the voltage or current control
mode.

Asati and Kulkarni

In the voltage control mode, the DSTATCOM can force
the voltage of a distribution bus to be balanced
sinusoids. In the current control mode, it can cancel
distortion caused by the load, such that current drawn
by the compensated load is pure balanced sinusoid. The
proposed algorithm works properly irrespective of
unbalance and harmonic distortions in load currents or
source voltages.
(iv) The Lookup Table and Super capacitor energy
storage system based DSTATCOM controlling:
Amin Nazarloo et al [5] proposed a new method in
which firstly the D-STATCOM and Super-capacitor
energy storage system are integrated and secondly, a
feedback from out of the PI controller is situated for
detecting the suitable proportional gain for any specific
fault that is shown in Fig. 4. The Lookup Table
arrangement in feedback is based on qualitative
testing by individual parameter alterations. The
proposed feedback improves the speed of dynamic
response of controller system and mitigates the
transient states, quickly.

Fig. 4. Feedback for improving the dynamic response.

Considering this fact that all types of fault may occur in
distribution system, controller system must be able to
mitigate any types of voltage sags. The integration and
control of energy storage systems, such as super
capacitor energy storage system (SCESS) into a DSTATCOM is developed to mitigate such problems,
enhance power quality and improve distribution system
reliability.
(v) Battery energy storage system (BESS) based DSTATCOM controlling: Ch. Siva Koti Reddy and Dr.
P.Linga Reddy [8] presented a BESS based control
strategy for wind energy system. In their proposed
scheme distribution static compensator (DSTATCOM)
is connected with a battery energy storage system
(BESS) to mitigate the power quality issues. The

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battery energy storage is integrated to sustain the real

power source under fluctuating wind power.
IV. DYNAMIC VOLTAGE RESTORER (DVR)
The Dynamic Voltage Restorer (DVR) is a series
compensating device. It is used for protecting a
sensitive load that is connected downstream from
sag/swell etc. It can also regulate the bus voltage at the
load terminal. The DVR is connected in series with the
critical load. During sags and swells, the VSI
synthesizes a voltage waveform of controlled
magnitude, frequency, and shape. The series insertion
transformer "adds" and scales this synthesized
waveform and superimposes it upon the line voltage.
The DVR reacts to voltage sags and swells within 1/4
of a cycle.

Fig. 5. Schematic diagram of DVR System.

The DVR uses DC capacitors to store the energy
required to boost or buck the line voltage. During a sag
or swell, the capacitors provide DC to the power
transistors in the inverter, which synthesizes an AC
voltage of the magnitude, waveform, phase angle, and
duration needed to compensate for the event. Energy is
not drawn from the system during the event. The
capacitors are subsequently recharged through the
inverter, which converts the line voltage to DC.
A. The Control Methods for the DVR
(i) Voltage unbalanced compensation using d-q-o
transformation technique: Rosli Omar and N.A.
Rahim [10] discuss the design and development of
Dynamic Voltage Restorer (DVR) controller for voltage

Asati and Kulkarni

62

unbalanced compensation using d-q-o transformation

technique. The controller in d-q-o coordinates has better
performance than conventional controllers. The
controlled variables in d-q-o coordinates are then
inversely transformed to the original voltages which
produced reference voltages to a DVR.
Fig. 7. Closed-loop control scheme [13].
(ii) Feed forward pre-sag/swell voltage control
method: Sanjay A Deokar et al [11] presents the feed
forward pre-sag/swell voltage control method to
regulate the output voltage of pulse width modulated
(PWM) voltage source converter (VSC). The proposed
controller maintains a constant load voltage under the
multiple
balanced/unbalanced
dynamic
PQ
disturbances. The proposed DVR control scheme based
on parks transformation is a simpler, lower cost. It is
able to compensate multiple sag/swell accurately and
can achieve fast response under dynamic load
conditions.

Fig. 6. Control scheme for PWM inverter [11].

This control system only measures the RMS voltage at
supply side or load side and no reactive power tracking
is required. The open-loop feed forward pre sag/swell
voltage control method is used to restore the load
voltage.
(iii) Repetitive Controller for DVR: Pedro Roncero
Snchez et al [13] presents a control system based on a
repetitive controller to compensate for key powerquality disturbances, namely voltage sags, harmonic
voltages, and voltage imbalances, using a dynamic
voltage restorer (DVR). The control scheme deals with
all three disturbances simultaneously within a
bandwidth. The control structure is quite simple and yet
very robust; it contains a feed-forward term to improve
the transient response and a feedback term to enable
zero error in steady state.

The whole control system is depicted in Figure 7 where

C(s) represents the controller. If the switching
frequency is high enough, the DVR can be modeled as
a linear amplifier with a pure delay P1(s). This delay is
the sum of one-sample-period plus the time delay of the
inverter due to PWM switching. The former applies in
cases of microprocessor based implementations and the
latter can be taken to be half the switching period. The
transfer function P2(s) is equal to is the reference
voltage V(s) for the load U(s), is the control output,
whereas U(s) is the output voltage of the DVR and V(s)
is the load voltage. The inputs and stand for the grid
voltage and the current through the load, respectively.
Both inputs Vpcc(s) are I(s) assumed to be measurable.
The model may be extended with ease to three phase
applications.
(iv) Dynamic control scheme for capacitorsupported single phase dynamic voltage restorer
(DVR): Carl N.M. Ho and Henry S.H. Chung [14]
presented a fast dynamic control scheme for the
capacitor-supported single phase dynamic voltage
restorer (DVR). The scheme consists of two main
control loops as inner and outer control loops. The inner
loop is used to dictate the gate signals for the switches
in the DVR. It is based on the boundary control
method with the second order switching surface. The
load voltage can ideally be reverted to the steady state
in two switching actions during a supply voltage dip.
The outer loop is used to generate the DVR output
reference for the first loop. It has three control modes
for achieving two different functions, including output
regulation and output restoration. The first mode is for
regulating the capacitor voltage on the dc side of the
inverter, so that the output of the DVR is regulated at
the nominal voltage.

Asati and Kulkarni

Fig. 8.

Functional block diagram of the DVR [14].

The second mode is for restoring the output with the

near minimum energy injection by the DVR during a
voltage dip. The third mode serves for the same purpose
as the second mode.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper presented a brief overview of the
functionality, topologies and applications of DSTATCOM and DVR. The paper also presents review
of the recent control algorithms used to enhance the
performance or for specialized operation of DSTATCOM and DVR. The content presented in paper
can be used for deciding the proper control methods for
these devices for a particular condition or operation. It
also establish that the control algorithm is a key aspect
for proper utilization of resources used in these devices.
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