Reactive Power and Voltage Control

of a Transmission Line
June 21, 2016 by admin

For understanding the relationship between the Reactive Power flow in a Transmission
Line and Voltage drop, we will consider Short Transmission Line for simplicity. A short
transmission line is one whose length is less than 80 km. For short Transmission Line
Resistance and Reactance of line is assumed lumped. The important thing for short
Transmission Line is that Shunt Capacitance is neglected because as the line is short
the effect of shunt capacitance will be less while the reactance will predominate.

By using this philosophy, we can represent a short Transmission Line as shown in

figure below.

Vs = Sending End Voltage

Vr = Receiving End Voltage
R = Line Resistance
L = Line Inductance
Z = Impedance of Line
Is = Sending End Current
Ir = Receiving End Current

Now, the sending end Voltage Vs is related to the receiving end voltage Vr as below
Vr ≈ Vs – ZIr  
where Z is the series impedance of the line consisting of resistance R and inductive
reactance X.

Z=R+jX

Therefore,

Vs – Vr ≈ ZIr ≈ RIrcosφ+ XIrsinφ ≈ (RP+XQ)/Vr

as VrIrcosφ =P and VrIrsinφ =Q

Now as R is quite small in comparison with X, it can be further simplified as:

Vs – Vr ≈ (XQ)/Vr

This expression indicates that following important points:

 The voltage drop for a given Receiving End Voltage Vr depends on Reactive
Power Flow, Q.
 In a constant voltage line, with Vs and Vr constant at all loads, then (XQ)/Vr is to
be a constant which is achieved by varying Q as Vr tries to vary. Thus, by
controlling the Reactive Power flow through the Transmission Line voltage
control is achieved.

STATCOM – Working Principle,

Design and Application
November 26, 2016 by admin

What is SATACOM?

STATCOM or Static Synchronous Compensator is a power electronic device using force

commutated devices like IGBT, GTO etc. to control the reactive power flow through a
power network and thereby increasing the stability of power network. STATCOM is a
shunt device i.e., it is connected in shunt with the line. A Static Synchronous
Compensator (STATCOM) is also known as a Static Synchronous Condenser
(STATCON). It is a member of the Flexible AC Transmission System (FACTS) family of
devices.

The terms Synchronous in STATCOM mean that it can either absorb or generate
reactive power in synchronization with the demand to stabilize the voltage of the power
network.

Working Principle of STATCOM:

To understand the working principle of STATCOM, we will first have a look at the
reactive power transfer equation. Let us consider two sources V1 and V2 are connected
through an impedance Z = Ra + jX as shown in figure below:

In the above reactive power flow equation, angle δ is the angle between V1 and V2.
Thus if we maintain angle δ = 0 then Reactive power flow will become:

Q = (V2/X) [V1-V2]

and active power flow will become:

P = V1V2Sinδ / X = 0
To summarize, we can say that if the angle between V1 and V2 is zero, the flow of
active power becomes zero and the flow of reactive power depends on (V1 – V2). Thus,
for flow of reactive power there are two possibilities:

1) If the magnitude of V1 is more than V2, then reactive power will flow from source
V1 to V2.
2) If the magnitude of V2 is more than V1, reactive power will flow from source V2
to V1.

This principle is used in STATCOM for reactive power control.

Now we will discuss about the design of STATCOM for better correlation of working
principle and design.

Design of STATCOM:

STATCOM has the following components:

1) A Voltage Source Converter (VSC):

The voltage-source converter is used to convert the DC input voltage to an AC

output voltage. Two of the common VSC types are as below:

a) Square-wave Inverters using Gate Turn-Off Thyristors: In this type of VSC,

output AC voltage is controlled by changing the DC capacitor input voltage, as
the fundamental component of the converter output voltage is proportional to the
DC voltage.

b) PWM Inverters using Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBT): It uses Pulse
Width Modulation (PWM) technique to create a sinusoidal waveform from a DC
voltage source with a typical chopping frequency of a few kHz. In contrast to the
GTO-based type, the IGBT-based VSC utilizes a fixed DC voltage and varies its
output AC voltage by changing the modulation index of the PWM modulator.

2) DC Capacitor:

DC Capacitor is used to supply constant DC voltage to the voltage source

converter, VSC.

3) Inductive Reactance:

A Transformer is connected between the output of VSC and the Power System.
Transformer basically acts as a coupling medium. In addition, Transformer
neutralize harmonics contained in the square waves produced by VSC.

4) Harmonic Filter:

Harmonic Filter attenuates the harmonics and other high frequency components
due to the VSC.
 A simplified diagram along with equivalent electrical circuit of STATCOM is
shown in figure below:

Now we will understand how the STATCOM works although we have discussed the
basic operating principle of STATCOM. As can be seen from the figure above, source
V1 represents the output voltage of the STATCOM. In case of reactive power demand
increases in the power system, STATCOM increases its output voltage V1 while
maintain the phase difference between V1 and V2 to zero (it shall be noted here that
there will always exists small phase angle between V1 and V2 to cater for the leakage
impedance drop in the interconnecting Transformer).

As V1 > V2, reactive power will flow from STATCOM to the power system. Thus
STATCOM, supplies reactive power and acts as reactive power generator.
Again, if the voltage of the power system increases due to load throw off, STATCOM
will reduce its output voltage V1 and therefore will absorb reactive power to stabilize the
voltage to normal value.

The above mode of operation of STATCOM is called Voltage Regulation Mode.

But as we know every equipment has got their own limitations, so STATCOM must also
have some limitation of supplying or absorbing reactive power. Yes, there exists a
limitation and this limitation is imposed by the current carrying capacity of force
commutated devices like IGBT, GTO etc.
Therefore, if the operation of STATCOM reaches their limitation, it does not further
increase or decrease its output voltage V1 rather it supplies or absorbs fixed reactive
power equal to its limiting value at a fixed voltage and current and acts like constant
current source.

This mode of operation of STATCOM is called VAR Control Mode.

Thus form the above discussion, the operation of STATCOM can be classified into two
modes:

1)    Voltage Regulation Mode

2)    VAR Control Mode

The figure below well explains the above two modes of operation of STATCOM:

The figure above is the Voltage Current Characteristics of STATCOM. As can be seen,
voltage regulation capability of STATCOM is from V1 (in lower side) to V2 in upper side
of power system. If the voltage of power system goes below V1 or above V2,
STATCOM acts in VAR Control mode. Here V1 and V2 are just taken for example, it
should not be confused with the V1 (used for output voltage of STATCOM) and V2
(Voltage of power system) used in the discussion above.

Application of STATCOM:

Voltage stability is one of the biggest problems in power systems. Engineers and
researchers are trying to consolidate a definition regarding to voltage stability, besides
proposing techniques and methodologies for their analysis. Most of these techniques
are based on the search of the point in which the system’s Jacobian becomes
singular, this point is referred as the point of voltage collapse or maximum load
ability point. (We will discuss point of voltage collapse in next post) The series
and shunt compensation are able to increase the maximum transfer capabilities of
power network. Concerning to voltage stability, such compensation has the purpose of
injecting reactive power to maintain the voltage magnitude in the nodes close to the
nominal values, besides, to reduce line currents and therefore the total system losses.
Today, due to the development in the power electronics devices, the voltage magnitude
in some node of the system can be adjusted through sophisticated and versatile devices
named FACTS. One of them is the static synchronous compensator (STATCOM).
Usually, a STATCOM is installed to support electrical networks that have a poor power
factor and often poor voltage regulation. The most common use of STATCOM is for
voltage stability. A STATCOM is a voltage source converter (VSC) based device, with
the voltage source behind a reactor. The voltage source is created from a DC capacitor
and therefore a STATCOM has very little active power capability. However, its active
power capability can be increased if a suitable energy storage device is connected
across the DC capacitor.