Application of STATCOM in Power Quality Improvement

Abstract

This thesis studies the application of static synchronous compensators, STATCOM, in power quality improvement. The STATCOM has been mainly used to enhance the stability of electric power systems. The 48-pulse STATCOM system is used for compensation to ensure good power quality in the point of common coupling. The simple PI controller is used to offer DC bus voltage control and AC bus voltage regulation at the point of common coupling. The application of STATCOM can help to alleviate some of the power quality issues encountered within a transmission lines consisting loads. The intent of this research is to demonstrate the improvements obtained with STATCOM for this purpose. Computer simulations show that the application of STATCOM can help for compensation of transmission line. The analysis also demonstrates that the STATCOM with appropriate controller can be very effective in voltage control capability. Several cases are considered, including the STATCOM out of service and voltage system decreases by different percentage values of nominal voltage. The steady state performance of the STATCOM is analyzed through computer simulations with MATLAB/SIMULINK program. The simulation results confirm that the multilevel STATCOM is suitable for the reactive power compensation and the power system voltage regulation.