CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 GENERAL

Electrical energy is the back bone for the development of the society. With
the industrial growth of a nation there is always an increased requirement of
electrical energy. The increased demand for electric energy requires to increase the
transmission capabilities. However, the inherent thermal, dielectric and stability
limits of power system restrict the power transaction, leading to the under utilization
of the existing transmission resources.

Traditionally, fixed or mechanically switched shunt and series capacitors,

reactors and synchronous generators were being used. However, wear and tear in the
mechanical components, large switching transients and slow response were the
problems with these devices. There was a greater need for an alternative technology
based on solid state devices with fast response characteristics. The need was further
fuelled by world wide restructuring of electric utilities and difficulties in getting
permit and right of way for the construction of new overhead transmission
lines [1-3]. This together with the invention of thyristor switch opened the door for
the development of power electronic devices based controllers known as flexible ac
transmission systems controllers [4-6]. It appears to be a promising concept, which
provides a way for the maximum utilization of the existing transmission facilities.

FACTS controllers provide fast and reliable control over the three main
transmission parameters, i.e., voltage magnitude, phase angle and line impedance to
facilitate optimal power system performance. FACTS devices are broadly classified
into two types namely thyristor based devices and voltage source inverter based
devices. Static var compensator, thyristor controlled series capacitor, etc., are the
thyristor based FACTS devices [7-12]. Static synchronous compensator, static
synchronous series compensator and unified power flow controller are the voltage
source inverter based FACTS devices [13-24].

Among the various FACTS controllers, the devices that use a direct current
(dc) - alternating current (ac) inverter are considered superior to those of phase
controlled devices in terms of harmonic performance, dynamic response and ease of
operation. Thus, present day research is being directed to understand the
performance of the voltage source inverter based FACTS devices in a practical
power system [1-3].

1.2 VSI BASED FACTS CONTROLLERS

The significance of VSI based FACTS controllers is that it does not employ
discrete capacitor or reactor banks as in thyristor based devices, but includes dc-ac
inverters to exchange shunt or series reactive power with the transmission system.
The synchronous voltage source approach to transmission line compensation and
control is illustrated using the simple bus system (Fig.1.1).

Fig. 1.1 Schematic diagram of two machine power system

The power flow P, in a simple two machine power system is given by

VS VR
P= sin(δ1 -δ 2 ) (1.1)
XL
where VS, VR are the magnitudes of the sending and receiving end voltages
respectively.
δ1, δ2 are the angles of the sending and receiving end voltages respectively.
XL is the reactance of the transmission line.

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 To enhance the power flow over the transmission line the parameters namely
voltage, impedance or angle must be adjusted. The shunt connected compensator
(STATCOM) is used to control the transmission line voltage. The series connected
compensator (SSSC) controls the effective line impedance, XL and the UPFC
controls all variables (voltage, impedance and angle) selectively or concurrently.

1.2.1 Static Synchronous Compensator

STATCOM is a static synchronous generator, operated as shunt connected

static var compensator whose capacitive or inductive output can be controlled
independent of the ac system voltage [1]. The STATCOM model is connected in
shunt with the transmission line using a step-down transformer as shown in Fig.1.2.

Fig. 1.2 Schematic diagram of STATCOM

A STATCOM incorporates a voltage source inverter that produces a set of

three phase ac output voltages, each of which is in phase with, and coupled to the
corresponding ac system phase via a relatively small reactance. This small reactance
is usually provided by the per phase leakage reactance of the coupling transformer.
The ac voltage difference across this transformer produces reactive power exchange

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between the STATCOM and the power system at the point of common coupling
(PCC). The exchange of real power and reactive power between the STATCOM and
power system can be controlled by adjusting the amplitude and phase of the
converter output voltage.

1.2.2 Static Synchronous Series Compensator

The static synchronous series compensator is another FACTS controller

connected in series with the transmission line to control the power flow
without generating classical network resonance and oscillations. The
schematic diagram of SSSC is depicted in Fig.1.3.

Fig. 1. 3 Schematic diagram of SSSC

The SSSC has a power electronic-based synchronous voltage source that

generates three phase ac voltages of controllable magnitude and phase angle. This
voltage, injected in series with the transmission line voltage, is almost in quadrature
with the line current and hence emulates an equivalent inductive or capacitive
reactance in series with the transmission line. When the series injected voltage leads
the line current, it emulates an inductive reactance causing the power flow and the

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line current to decrease. On the other hand, when the line current leads the injected
voltage, it emulates a capacitive reactance, thereby, enhancing the power flow over
the line.

1.2.3 Unified Power Flow Controller

The unified power flow controller is connected to the power system by two
coupling transformers as shown in Fig.1.4. The voltage source inverter (VSI 1) is
shunt connected and the VSI 2 is series connected to the power system. These two
inverters are operated from a common dc link provided by a dc storage capacitor.
Thus the configuration of UPFC can be considered as a compound system of
STATCOM and SSSC sharing a common dc link capacitor. It can be operated as a
power flow controller, a voltage regulator or a phase shifter depending upon the
control strategy adopted.

Fig. 1.4 Schematic diagram of UPFC

The application of FACTS in electric power system is intended for reactive

power compensation, control of power flow, improvement of stability, voltage
profile management, power factor correction and loss minimization. The
STATCOM is used for reactive power control and voltage control whereas SSSC
helps to enhance the power flow over the line. UPFC has the unique ability of

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controlling the real and reactive power flow independently. Depending on the
desired performance requirement of any utility system, appropriate FACTS
controller has to be identified and incorporated.

1.3 LITERATURE REVIEW

A brief overview of historical background followed by critical review of

earlier investigations carried out on FACTS controllers are presented here.
Controllers in the electric power utility system are very few. Traditionally, they are
implemented in the generating stations to provide power requirements of the
load [4]. They include speed governors; the field exciter systems in the alternators
and the transformer tap changers. In recent times, there is a growing need for more
and better controllers to cope with the many problems related to extensive ac
interconnections, very long distance transmission, congestions in transmission
corridors and power utility deregulation and restructuring.

As ac interconnections multiplied and ac transmission lines stretched over

distances, the effect of distributed line inductance and capacitance manifest
themselves as over voltages during light loads and voltage sags during heavy
loads [25]. There is a need to regulate ac voltages of transmission line. It is done by
var compensation at strategic points, using thyristor switched capacitors (TSC),
thyristor controlled reactors (TCR) and static var compensators (combination of
TCR-TSC) to provide continuous var control [8, 9]. In principle, all shunt type
controllers inject additional current into the system at the point of common coupling.
An impedance of the shunt controller causes a variable current flow and hence
represents an injection of current into the line. As long as the injected current is in
phase quadrature with the line voltage, the shunt controller only supplies or
consumes variable reactive power [26, 27].

In distant ac transmission lines, the increasing inductive reactance reduces

the transient stability limit. The transient stability limit can be raised by series
capacitor compensation with the capacitor controlled by anti-parallel connected

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thyristors, and was named as thyristor controlled switched capacitor [28, 29]. These
ac power electronic controllers, namely SVC and TCSC, are known as FACTS
controllers [6-8]. In addition, the emergence of switching devices with both turn on
and off capability has led to the development of voltage source inverters. Employing
turn off capability semiconductor devices, switching power converters have been
able to operate at higher switching frequencies and to provide a faster response. This
makes the voltage source inverter an important part in the FACTS controllers [13].
Since the late 1980s, the thyristor based power electronic controllers have found new
embodiments as VSI based FACTS controllers:

• Static var compensator as STATCOM [14, 30, 31].

• Thyristor controlled switched capacitors as SSSC [17, 18].

The STATCOM is the first power converter based shunt connected

controller. The concept of STATCOM [1] was disclosed by Gyugyi in 1986. Again
in 1997, L.Gyugyi et al. made an attempt to describe the operating characteristics of
SSSC in comparison with the thyristor based TCSC [17].

The STATCOM and SSSC are connected back to back with a common dc
link to bring out a new FACTS controller named as unified power flow controller.
With this combination, the UPFC inherits all the benefits of STATCOM and SSSC
and maximize the operational region [20-22, 32, 33]. Several researchers attempted
to study the control and operation of the STATCOM, SSSC and UPFC [18, 34 - 43].

The power circuit of UPFC can be viewed as the conventional ac-dc-ac converter.
This dc link capacitor has inherent disadvantages such as more space requirement, limited
life and also expensive. Besides it slows down the transient response of the circuit [44].
Measures were taken to address the problems of ac-dc-ac conversion when applied for
motor control applications [45-52]. Y. Minari et al. have proposed a scheme of
ac-dc-ac conversion eliminating the electrolytic capacitor [50] in which the rectifier
section has been operated using PWM control to achieve the desired output
waveform. It has been reported that the PWM rectifier/VSI without dc link yields a

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flexible performance even at low power level. A direct ac-ac energy conversion
device namely the matrix converter (MC) that converts the ac line voltage into
variable voltage arbitrary amplitude, unrestricted frequency without using an
intermediate dc link has been proposed [44, 51, 52]. Similar approaches could be
employed to eliminate the dc link capacitor present in UPFC.

Apart from UPFC, the shunt and the series compensators can also be operated
separately based on the desired compensation. In general, the complete control system of
these FACTS controllers basically consists of two main parts such as external and internal
control. The external control depends on the power system network to which the FACTS
device is connected. However, the internal control mainly depends on the VSI topologies
and should instantaneously respond to a given command, generated by the corresponding
external controller. Different configurations of voltage source inverters can be operated
with the same external control as long as they are connected to the same problematic
network. During the past two decades, exhaustive research was done on external control
of STATCOM [34-37, 53, 54] as well as SSSC [34, 35, 43, 55, 56]. On the other hand,
not much attention was focused on the internal control of the FACTS controllers.

The voltage source inverter, which is a basic building block of these FACTS
devices, generates a sinusoidal output voltage waveform with a desired magnitude
and phase angle demanded by the internal control in synchronism with the
sinusoidal utility system. The traditional two-level VSI produces a square wave
output as it switches the direct voltage source on and off. However for high voltage
applications, a near sinusoidal ac voltage with minimal harmonic distortion is
required. In order to realise higher voltages, each main switch of the 2-level inverter
is formed by connecting many semiconductor devices in a series/parallel fashion. It
is essential that with this arrangement, the electrical and thermal characteristics of
the series and/or parallel connected semiconductor devices should be matched [57].

In response to the growing demand for high power inverter units, multipulse
inverters (MPI) have drawn increased interest in the field of research and industry [58-60].
A multipulse inverter generates a staircase wave closely resembling a sine wave by

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connecting number of identical three-phase inverter bridges through phase shifting
transformers (PST). The high power STATCOM commissioned at Sullivan
substation, United States used 48-pulse voltage source inverter in order to obtain
higher operating voltages with less harmonic content [1]. Pavel Zuniga-Haro and
Juan M.Ramirez have developed a static synchronous series compensator using
48-pulse voltage source inverter [61]. In this multipulse inverter topology, eight
PSTs are used which are complex and expensive.

An attractive alternative to the multipulse inverter is the multilevel inverter

(MLI) [62-69] which has evolved in three different topologies namely diode
clamped multilevel inverter (DCMLI), [62, 63] flying capacitor multilevel inverter
(FCMLI) [64] and cascaded multilevel inverter (CMLI) [65, 66]. Among the three
configurations, the CMLI with a separate dc capacitor is widely accepted for
applications in high power drives and utility systems due to its modularized circuit
layout and sufficiently high operating voltage [67]. Though the basic concept of the
CMLI has existed over more than two decades, it was not fully realized until
F.Z.Peng and J.S.Lai [65], patented it and presented its various advantages in 1997.
The CMLI consists of a number of H-bridge power conversion cells with each cell
supplied by an isolated source on the dc side and series connected on the ac side so
as to produce a staircase waveform. A premium quality output waveform can be
achieved with a sufficiently high number of voltage levels. However, the number of
voltage levels is limited due to control complexity and cost. Besides, a large number
of dc capacitors are required whose voltages must be balanced in order to avoid
over-voltages on any particular link. The critical review of literature shows neither
MPI nor MLI is useful on their own. A hybrid inverter topology incorporating the
advantages of both MPI and MLI will be attractive. Thus a detailed analysis of
various inverter topologies is absolutely essential in order to propose a suitable
inverter for power system applications.

In recent years, fuzzy logic control (FLC) [70] began to receive more
attention in power systems. However, the investigation on fuzzy applications in
power system control is confined mainly to excitation control and power system

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stabilizer design [71]. Very few researchers worked on the application of fuzzy
control to FACTS devices [72-77]. In the year 2000, L.O. Mak et al. [73] designed a
fuzzy controller for static synchronous compensator to enhance interconnected
power system stability. They developed fuzzy controller for both main control of
STATCOM and supplementary control to regulate voltage and damp inter-area
power oscillation respectively. In 2003, Stella Morris et al. [74] developed a
variable structure fuzzy control algorithm for controlling the reactive component of
the STATCOM current in a power system.

B.N.Singh et al. [75] have developed a closed loop control schemes for
SSSC with a fuzzy sliding mode controller and fuzzy PI controller to improve the
dynamic response of SSSC. S. Kannan et al. [76] have designed a fuzzy logic
controller as a supplementary controller for SSSC to damp power system oscillation
and improve power system dynamic performance. However, V.K.Chandrakar and
A.G.Kothari [77] have used the fuzzy logic controller as a main controller to control
the magnitude and angle of the SSSC injected voltage operated in voltage injection
mode. In a similar perspective FLC could be used in the closed loop control scheme
of SSSC when operated in other control modes namely line impedance
compensation mode or automatic power flow control (APFC) mode.

Presently, the focus is being directed to understand the behaviour of FACTS

devices in a practical power system. For maximum utilization of any FACTS device
in power system planning, operation and control, power solution of the network with
any of these devices is a fundamental requirement. As a result, substantial research
work has been carried out for developing efficient power flow algorithm for FACTS
devices [78-82].

Power flow studies incorporating UPFC requires an accurate mathematical model

[78, 79]. The model includes algebraic equations, which must be solved iteratively. Most
researchers use Newton – Raphson (N-R) method of iterative solution because of its
quadratic convergence properties. Mihalic R. Zunko [80] et al. introduced a UPFC model
based on a single, ideal series voltage source. H. Ambrez Perez et al. [81],

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Ghadir Radman and Reshma S. Raje [82] utilizes two ideal voltage sources, one in
series and one in parallel to develop a UPFC steady state model. In 1999, Y.H.Song
et al. [83] proposed a steady state UPFC model and its power injection
transformation had been described in rectangular form. The optimal multiplier
power flow method was applied to implement the UPFC model. A UPFC based
power flow model, derived from two voltage source representations has been
presented in [84]. It is evident from the review of literature that proper methodology
need to be developed for incorporating FACTS devices in the existing three phase
power systems.

1.4 RESEARCH MOTIVATION

With rapid industrialisation and increased standards of living, the demand for
electricity has increased tremendously. The financial and environmental concerns
have prompted to look for ways and means to maximize the utilization of the
available resources and explore measures to enhance the performance of the existing
systems. FACTS devices help to distribute the electrical energy more economically
through better utilization of existing installation, there by reducing the need for
additional transmission lines.

Among the FACTS family, the VSI based FACTS devices have several
advantages such as being small/compact, high response speed and no harmonic
pollution. In the existing scheme of UPFC the key problem is with the dc link
capacitor which is occupying more space, has limited life and also expensive. The
critical review of literature shows that there is ample scope to address the problems
associated with dc link capacitor present in UPFC without compromising its
performance.

The harmonics generated on the ac side of the inverter circuits greatly

influence the power quality of the transmission system. While many benefits may be
realized from large scale introduction of power converters into the power grid, it is
essential to have a detailed analysis on the harmonics generated by these circuits and

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their impact on power system. It is observed from the critical review of literature
that an exhaustive research work had been carried out in the modeling of these
devices for optimal power flow studies and control analysis. However, much
attention has not been focused on the development of power electronic based
inverter circuits and their control in respect of total harmonic distortion (THD).
Thus, a detailed analysis of various inverter topologies is absolutely essential in
order to propose a suitable inverter for power system applications.

Modern power systems are large, complex, geographically widely distributed

and highly nonlinear. It is not trivial to derive detailed global system model.
Moreover, power system operating conditions and topologies are time varying and
the disturbances are unforeseeable. These uncertainties make it very difficult to
effectively deal with power system stability problems through conventional PI
controller which is based on linearised system model and single operating condition.
The fuzzy logic approach has been emerging in recent years as a complement to the
conventional approach. Thus there is a scope to introduce FLC for enhancing the
dynamic performance of FACTS devices under varying power system operating
conditions. An attempt has been made in the present work to address the aforesaid
issues to improve the performance of VSI based FACTS devices.

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1.5 OBJECTIVES

The objectives of this dissertation include

i) To build a novel structure of UPFC without dc link capacitor
• To develop suitable modulation techniques and closed loop
control schemes for the series and shunt converters.
• To evaluate its performance and compare with the existing
scheme of UPFC through simulation.
ii) To realize a matrix converter based UPFC, using indirect space
vector modulation (ISVM) technique
• To suggest a suitable closed loop control scheme.
• To study the performance of UPFC with load variations
through simulation.
iii) To develop a STATCOM model using combined multipulse-
multilevel inverter
• To derive a combined multipulse-multilevel inverter
configuration from the existing inverter configurations.
• To construct a closed loop control scheme for operating the
STATCOM in the automatic voltage control (AVC) mode.
• To investigate the performance of the STATCOM under
varying load and fault conditions through simulation.
iv) To design a fuzzy logic controller for SSSC realized through a
combined multipulse-multilevel inverter topology and assess its
performance through simulation in the automatic power flow
control mode under different operating states.
v) To develop a power injection model of UPFC and evaluate its
performance through the standard IEEE -30 bus power system.

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1.6 THESIS ORGANIZATION

An overview of power electronic converters and the need to identify new

inverter configurations with FACTS devices to improve the performance of power
systems is presented in Chapter 1. Review of literature forms a part of the same
chapter.

The UPFC scheme without dc link capacitor along with the suitable
modulation techniques and closed loop control strategies for the shunt and series
converters are described in Chapter 2. The comparative performance of the proposed
approach with that of the existing scheme is brought out along with the simulation
results. Another scheme of UPFC with matrix converter is realized in the same
chapter. A brief theory of operation of matrix converter along with a suitable
switching strategy and simulation results are explained.

A combined multipulse-multilevel inverter topology suitable for STATCOM

and SSSC applications is proposed in Chapter 3. The performance of the
STATCOM with the proposed inverter configuration and decoupled control strategy
is verified. A detailed discussion on the performance of STATCOM under varying
loads along with the simulation results is presented.

The SSSC is realized with the proposed inverter configuration in Chapter 4.

A detailed elucidation about the fuzzy logic based closed loop controller for
operating the SSSC in the automatic power flow control mode is presented with the
simulation results.

The power injection model for UPFC is developed using Newton’s method
in Chapter 5. The performance of the proposed model is verified through IEEE – 30
bus system by operating the UPFC in its various modes of operation.

The salient features of the work carried out and the major contributions are
summarized in Chapter 6. The scope for further research in the same area is also
outlined.
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